The Irish diaspora is once more in vogue, following the Celtic Tiger years when its potential was less well regarded. That changed drastically when the collapse came last year.
As a result, official Ireland is paying much more attention to the Irish abroad, and notably to its economic elite, as seen in the September Farmleigh conference. The Government is now creating a global network dedicated to economic renewal.
But there is still a great numbness about any wider political or representational role for the overseas Irish. Successive efforts to secure voting rights for the estimated 3.5 million Irish citizens abroad, or for the one million or so Irish-born of them, came to nothing. Even a modest representation in the Seanad rather than the Dáil proved unacceptable (although TCD and UCD graduates overseas have votes there).
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