Role of emigrants in establishing the State

Sir, – We are writing to express our disappointment that the State did not hold an official centennial event honouring the role of Irish emigrants in the creation of the Free State. We find this omission lamentable given the enormous contribution of Irish emigrants to Ireland over many decades and ironic given that the Easter Proclamation makes an explicit reference to being “supported by her exiled children in America”. We have engaged with the Irish government on this issue from 2015, but with no success. We find it even more lamentable that we have yet to receive a reply to our letter dated September 30th to the Government noting the omission of emigrants in the Decade of Centenaries programme.

Emigrant remittances supported many families in Ireland from Famine times. Emigrants in America led by Fenian leaders John Devoy and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa sustained the Irish independence movement for over 50 years. Thomas Clarke, a naturalised US citizen, and James Connolly were sons of Irish emigrant families. Both returned to Ireland to lead the Rising and sign the Easter Proclamation.

The failure of the Irish State to formally recognise the emigrant contribution during the Decade of Centenaries reflects an ambivalence of the State toward emigrants. An unstated hierarchy of Irishness exists in Irish political culture which defines Irish-born citizens living outside the State as second-class citizens. The current electoral system enshrines this second-class status denying Irish citizens living abroad or in Northern Ireland the right to vote. Emigrants wish to be written back into Irish history and into the future of Ireland as well. – Yours, etc,

HILARY BEIRNE,