Skerries Community Association

RTE are coming to Skerries on Wednesday 11th July to film the start of the Skerries Reaching Out Project read on for background on the project.... 

  Ireland Reaching Out aims to systematically reunify the Irish Diaspora by enabling every Irish parish north and south to connect with the descendents of its emigrants around the world. The goal is to provide a national infrastructure for parish-based communities to engage with their Diaspora and enable them to become part of our virtual Irish global community.

 The idea is very simple: instead of waiting for people of Irish descent to return to Ireland to 'trace their roots' as is popularly done today, it proposes to enable local communities, largely through volunteer effort, to proactively engage with their diaspora. This reverse genealogy entails the tracing and recording of all the people who left and seeking out their living descendents worldwide. Those identified or recognised as persons of Irish heritage or affiliation are invited to become part of a new extended Irish society. The Ireland XO project offers an extraordinary opportunity for local parish communities to extend the numbers of people committed to their parish by inviting its own Diaspora worldwide to become involved in their place of origin.  To initiate what can become a lifelong relationship, a parish, once it has identified its living descendents, will extend an invitation to a 'Week of Welcomes' to be held in each parish in June or whatever month of choice, with the objective of attracting approx. 25-30 people back to each parish.

 RTE

 US President Barack Obama's Irish cousin, Henry Healy, has a new job helping people trace long-lost ancestors. He has joined Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO). Ireland XO is going nationwide and Mr. Healy will visit parishes to introduce the organisation. RTE are going to cover the story of his involvement and are planning to come to Skerries the week of the 9th July along with Mr. Healy to shoot for a programme on it.

 At this stage we need to get a team together fairly quickly to deal with 1. the immediate RTE coverage, 2. starting work on the Skerries Parish Profile on the Ireland XO website and 3. to initiate research into tracking down descendents of people who would have emigrated from Skerries over the decades.  See links below for related information:- 

http://www.irelandxo.com/

 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0628/1224318892276.html

 http://www.irelandxo.com/press-releases/henry-healy-joins-ireland-reaching-out-helping-irish-parishes-connect-their-global-di

  If you would like to become involved on the team in what promises to be a very interesting and exciting SKERRIES REACHING OUT project  please contact: John Coleman     Tel: 8490434    Mob: 087-686 5243   Email:   colemanjo@eircom.net  on behalf of Skerries Community Association