United Technologies placed this ad in the Wall Street Journal, 1979

Playing “catch up” in Ireland.

Imagine the surprise at 53 years old discovering I was, yet again, a girl.

Imagine the surprise in finding my accomplished, professional peers were also girls.

Imagine my sadness on realising they didn’t have a problem with it.

Please let us consider the underlying misogyny and join in rejecting the appellation.

When I moved here in 2008, the feminist in me never expected to be back at square one.

This tattered copy has hung in one office or another since 1980. The Christmas gift tag added in 1985 was a reminder that my bemused staff didn’t think it was important either. They got it eventually.

One hopes the New Yorker cartoon illustrates the absurdity of accepting something we can change…

…or else we conspire in our own oppression.

“Whoever saves one life saves a world entire.”

What need has a wee Irish boy of the global Irish diaspora?

Hi everyone, I am Charlie’s mum and I just want to thank you all for what you are doing. Charlie is a great wee man with a huge zest for life, he really has a fighting spirit and I totally believe we will get a successful match and that Charlie will be cured of cancer…
Will keep you all updated. Love Cliodhna & Fintan, Charlie & Nancy xx

Thanks to Charlie and his family’s urgent appeal, NI registrations on the bone marrow register have grown 2000%. Now let’s grow the registers in America, Australia, Canada and wherever else we Irish have settled.

America is a nation of immigrants who in the last 50 years have learned to celebrate their ethnic and racial identities. Gone are the days of the “melting pot”,  hyphenated Americans value their roots.

And there is DNA in those Irish-American roots!

The shores of America, Canada, Australia and countries worldwide were once life saving. Generations of Irish have invested their young building other nations.

May we now ask for a return on that investment?

Life saving bone marrow transplants require donors that “match”. Matches are most likely found in people with similar ethnic backgrounds.

Spread the word! We are fewer than 6 million here but an estimated 70 million worldwide. Get tested and register. It’s a cheek swab. Not just for Charlie, but for your family and distant cousins worldwide.

Consider the luck of the Irish! We have a sizable diaspora to ask.

Not so lucky, the Jews. Or African Americans.

A worldwide Jewish population/diaspora is estimated at fewer than 14 million. In 2005 when legendary jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker was diagnosed with a blood disorder requiring a bone marrow transplant his family launched a worldwide search for a donor. Widely publicized across both Jewish communities and the musical world, no match was found.

“Being Jewish made it especially difficult to find a genetic match, since such large part of the Jewish population was lost during World War II.” ¹

The problem also exists for African Americans. Good Morning America host Robin Roberts highlighted this issue just last year. Diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome she was blessed to have a sister who was a perfect match. A gift because only 7% of donors registered in America are African-American.

Please register! Urge your friends as well.

United States; Ireland (ROI); United Kingdom; Canada; Australia

On a sad note – Charlie lost his battle and “gained his angel wings” on 2. August 2019. You can keep his memory alive by registering – and where possible – supporting the children’s cancer charities and caregivers whose support sustained him then – and so many families now.

¹(http://phillyist.com/2008/04/01/bone_marrow_dri.php)

This blog is a relaunch of one that I started in 2009 in support of an enthusiastic mid-life relocation to Ireland while embarking on the path of a reluctant entrepreneur.

Reluctant because in 2008/09 there were few other choices – and because the gods have a sense of humour. I began training for the work I do now during the great recession of the early eighties when career development work was ‘teaching entrepreneurship’. I’d never expected to be taking my own advice – thirty years later.

You can learn more about my ongoing work, find out about our courses and workshops, and join the conversation at Empowering-Change.com.

Why have a separate blog?

The change I encourage there is an invitation to repair and restore your own sense of self and to bring those lessons and habits into an effort to repair and restore your world.

Globally we’ve seen a post-pandemic shift. There’s less of a call to return to normal than there is a demand for a new normal. One that is focused on the environment, wealth inequality, the millions displaced by climate and conflict – in short the needs of the many over the tyranny of a power elite.

What you’ll read about here are reflections by and about empowered citizens and servant leaders.

My story, other people’s stories, observations about Ireland and Northern Ireland from the lens of this blow-in perpetually frustrated that so many of my neighbours can’t see the possibility and potential of a prosperous future on this island.

More importantly through the lenses of native changemakers who believe that were we to embrace diversity, demand transparency and accountability, and excellence from both taxing authorities things would improve economically, politically and socially.

When we’re less angry about the failures of systems and leadership we can begin to concern ourselves -with a shared future to benefit every citizen rather than fear monger over a need to share an identity or nationhood.

A Culture of Recovery

In a 2012 TEDx talk I related the experience of being shamed by a butcher because my order was not to his liking. Oh, I pushed back, got what I wanted and I do business with his shop this day.

At the time I could often be heard suggesting that what the island needed was its own 12-step program – rooms in which I had learned to unapologetically assert my position and invite further conversation.

The lessons of recovery are developmental and universal.

Well-reared children in all cultures come of age with the skill to live at peace with themselves.

They move from dependent infants to terrible toddlers, to determined and rebellious teens. Through the course of adulthood, they evolve into confident, consensus-seeking adults who negotiate calmly, personally and professionally, to establish their place in the world.

Sadly, most of us don’t experience this ideal and uninterrupted progression. We reach adulthood struggling with dis-ease or discontent.

At best, we wish we were happier at work or at home, at worst we self medicate our dis-ease with substances or behaviours to numb it.

Thankfully if motivated by our discontent, we can all choose change.

Catalysing Conversations & Connections

If you can see it, you can be it.

The first time I heard that it was powerfully uttered by Irish Senator Lynne Ruane.

The occasion was an event convened to honour the memory of a young Irish mother who succumbed to the despair of homelessness – the legacy of an economic recovery that focused on preserving the wealth of a few over the needs of women, children and families.

Notably in direct contravention of the one of the founding principles of the Republic.

Her own story – and book – People Like Me gave voice to the experience of being marginalised – and it gave me hope that a generation of truth tellers was emerging here.

“Few voices ring out as clearly as those who have long been oppressed or silenced. In her heartfelt memoir People Like Me, author Lynn Ruane tells the gripping story of her working-class Dublin life, the kind of life that rarely gets a hearing elsewhere and so she does it with the kind of detail those who have been waiting years to speak up bring to a written work.”–Irish Voice

Her story powerfully illustrates that witnessing our personal stories of change is where societal change begins.

I have been privileged to know changemakers on both sides of the Irish border – and there is power in connecting them with constituencies that can amplify their messages.

We don’t know what we don’t know

It’s an invitation to become curious.

However, a post-conflict society requires more than an invitation.

What’s needed is the kind of relationship building that introduces the safe space that gives over to brave space where trust and compassion can overcome the wilful blindness wrought by generations of the wilfully blind leading the wilfully blind.

Empowering Changemakers

I’m convinced that you can’t teach or evangelise about excellent leadership – but you can witness and celebrate it.

If you recognize the dysfunction of our social, economic and political systems rooted in the dis-ease of our leadership, then we must share the stories to inspire and empower each other to challenge that leadership.

That is the call to “servant leadership”.

And please – email eve@eveearley.com to share your stories.

I’m passionate about celebrating the privilege of living in a place so beautiful that C.S. Lewis modelled Narnia on it. Carlingford Lough & the Mournes is where he spent childhood summers with his grandmother.

I’m passionate about working to teach entrepreneurship, creating jobs and bringing investment.

The granddaughter of a reluctant emigrant, I returned a century after he left to find work. The children of this island are leaving again. We are exporting 1000 a week. 54,000 left in a 12-month period between 2010 & 11.

Sadder still is we are now exporting our first generation reared in peace. We must focus on exporting their intellectual property, not our children.

I am passionate that to do this, to create jobs and have our children take their place on the world stage, they must find their voices.

Whatever does that mean?

Tolstoy suggested that everyone wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change themselves.

If we are going to compete in a global economy, we are going to have to sell our location, our gifts, our talents and ourselves.  We just aren’t very good at that.

Reared with generations of conflict our parents and we were taught to “not get above our station”, not “raise our heads above the parapet” and for some of us, to be unfailingly polite. Fitting in, sometimes invisibly, mattered, so from a young age we were silenced.

How? Well, in my Irish American family, with shame and humour. Oh, the “reared in conflict” way of being crossed the pond.

Delighted to be meeting my dad and brother for dinner, I confidently strode in with a new, 1975 permanent – the rage of the day. Was I greeted with: “you look nice”? No. “Hi, love, how are you”? No. A hug? No.

My father, his loving blue eyes, glaring over the rim of his glasses said:

“My, don’t you look like the ass-end of a poodle”.

Every time I saw him for the next six months, I blew that perm out straight. Never wore a perm curly again!

Fifteen years later, while studying counselling, I read that the Irish discipline their children by chastising with shame and humour. Definitely. I skipped to the Italians, my mother’s tribe, they didn’t. Then I read about my husband’s ethnic background. They didn’t chastise at all – they lavished praise and encouragement.

Oops! An “aha” moment: for the better part of two decades, when he’d done something that annoyed me, I made a joke.  He thought I was amused. He continued the behaviour. He never got the “cease and desist” message.

I took the lesson on board in my personal relationships, framed my communications with clients and coworkers more carefully and never gave it a conscious thought again.

Until I moved to Ireland.

I walked into a village butcher shop, asked for brisket and went on to describe it.

“What would you be wantin that for?”
“My children are coming and it’s their favourite meal.”
“Well, your children will just have to learn to eat Irish.”
(momentary stunned silence)
“Well, I will learn to ‘eat Irish’, my guests will learn to ‘eat Irish’, but my children will have what they have always had, I’ll be in tomorrow at 2 to pick it up.”

On leaving I had two reactions. Initially, simply dumbfounded; then shocked by my response. In spite of believing that I no longer defaulted to adaptive responses learned in childhood, I’d been close to changing my order.

Had it been for myself or for a guest, I likely would have. But no, only because it was for my children!

 They have been the motivation for the most significant life changes I have made.

In my office in Newry, I observed someone a bit younger than I tense up. Stiff shoulders, straight back – but why.  Weeks later I observed it again.  A bit after that I asked what was happening?

 “Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“The helicopter”

No, these American reared ears don’t hear – or listen for helicopters. It means only a traffic report, an air ambulance, a visiting dignitary ferried from an airport.

Not so for my border colleagues and neighbours. The sound of a helicopter catapults them back in time. They know in their bones this sound means danger.

My American childhood, unencumbered by conflict, allows me to meet and greet a police officer – feeling secure and safe. No so for my border and Northern Ireland reared neighbours. They are reactive, still carrying the fear and/or the rage of past encounters.

These adaptive responses – survival skills – served them well during the troubles. They no longer do. Now it is problematic; as our reactive responses do not serve our children well.

Do I want them to “get over it”? Absolutely not!

The pain and trauma of generations of conflict needs to be honoured. It needs to be talked about. Not having had an unencumbered childhood is a loss. We must individually and collectively grieve it.

For our children, though, we can change our behaviours. Why?

Because, in our automatic, adaptive responses we transmit to our children our fear and our anger.

Because in our effort to care for them we rear them as we were reared.

“Don’t put your head above the parapet” (Don’t take chances)
“Don’t be getting above your station” (Quiet that ambition)
“You won’t be bringing shame on this house” (Don’t tell the truth)

To take their place on the world stage our children need to “put their heads above the parapet”; To lead in a global economy they need to “get above their station” and to model to the world how a post-conflict society comes to thrive – they need to tell the world the truth:

That it was hard; their parents, grandparents and great, great grandparents were wounded and scarred. Some neither forgave nor forgot – but in service to the future, they made peace, spoke civilly and kindly to each other so that in the space between peace and prosperity our children could throw off our survival skills and adopt their own ‘thrival’ skills.

Will it work?

Back to the butcher. I’d related the story in a group I was running – as an example of assertion vs. cheekiness. I ran into a woman 6 months after it ended.

“I have a ‘butcher’ story for you”

“You, do?”

“I remembered that you said speaking up, asking for something you don’t see or sending something back presented an opportunity for a shopkeeper to serve.

So I asked: Do you have any rhubarb?

“No, and I don’t know why. John up the road has a field of it. Leave it with me and come back tomorrow.”

A few hours later there was a knock on her door. The lad from the butcher’s, holding a bunch of rhubarb.
“He said to give you this.”

We can throw off the adaptive behaviours, and model new and assertive ones better suited to the 21st century.

One day, one transaction, one kind and civil conversation at a time. For our children.

I know it will take time, but I come from a tradition that says restoring the earth and repairing the world is our obligation – “Ours is not to complete the task, but neither may we desist from the labour”. (Ethics of the Fathers)

I am proud to live among the people who made the peace. I am reminded too of an Irish expression I didn’t understand when I arrived in a hurry to do everything. I appreciate it better now:

“We’ll get there.”

Thank you to Frank Kernohan from Corporate Image for a video of the talk.

 Embracing a Prosperity Process

Could a “Culture of Continuing Education” drive prosperity? If so, what next?

How many global centres of excellence can we have on a small island? Regionally, the border boasts innate strengths & unique experience in sectors on which we can build. Norbrook, First Derivatives, Glen Dimplex, Teleperformance, retailers, manufacturers & hospitality thrive here. Could market opportunities be linked to specific employer driven, non-degree training? Can we teach old dogs new tricks or use the old tricks in new sectors?

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Control, Alt, Delete! – January 17

Can we identify specific remedies to re-skill & up-skill potential employees?  What Public/Private partnerships might emerge to re-energise people using existing training efforts & industry specific programs?  Regional synergy can magnify the impact of programs. Can we embrace the opportunity to fill niche labour markets shortfalls in Dublin and Belfast?  Can we collectively reboot our thought processes?

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 Sessions 5.30pm to 7.30pm; Light bites served from 5:00 to 5:30. a participation fee of £20/€24 is requested; it is waived for members of Empowering Change in Emerald Valley.  

Chatham House Rules* will apply. There can be no movement forward without a full, fair and frank discussion. This is not the place for posturing or politics. We ask only for respectful participation. The intention here is to empower, catalyse and intrigue.

*“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed”.

Kevin Kling came into his own as a storyteller when while in college he realised, “Saturday night was only as good as the story you could tell about it on Sunday”.

Stories are the way in which we share the full measure of our experience.

The onus is on the listener to ‘take what you like and leave the rest’. Carefully chosen words unconsciously deliver a multilayered, and full message.

Just how full becomes apparent not only in the first telling but when compared to subsequent retellings.

We in the West let go of the gift of storytelling in the last half of the twentieth century. Arguably, in large part, because we devoted ourselves to science. Science, we believed, would reveal explanations for everything “unexplainable”. We no longer needed to spin yarns for children about things like what the noise of thunder was or where the rain comes from.

Thankfully, filmmakers, songwriters, and poets never lost sight of the value of a good story. Interestingly, and notably in the case of popular films, consciously or not, they kept retelling the old stories.

• If I said that StarWars was the Jesus story redux, a few might agree, some would deem me blasphemous, others just dismiss me.
• If I argued that the Matrix was like the Abraham story, perhaps the same result.
• And that some archetypal story in J.K. Rowling’s hands got a generation reading again!  Harry Potter’s adventures don’t require interpretation, but it too is a “hero’s journey”.

Monomyth is a term academics use to describe one story common to the mythology of cultures across the globe– the Hero’s Journey. The visual says it all:

Our task is to further explore how this universal story can inform our own. How we can grasp the significance of it in order to recognize a call to action in our own lives. There are heroes among us.  You are invited to explore your own story.

We live in challenging times. We can choose to despair, or allow our stories to be transformative. We can choose the journey. It begins with us.

If you are intrigued, these links may be of further interest:

The developer of the Matrix, Christopher Vogler, describes it in his words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AG4rlGkCRU

A lovely comparison of the myths of different cultures and life stages can be found at: http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00212/monomyth.html

Our own history on this island was well preserved by the efforts of the Irish Folklore Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Folklore_Commission

Those archives are available to the public, and many on-line thanks to University College Dublin: http://www.ucd.ie/folklore/en/

A Belfast filmmaker recently described the experience of growing up next door to a police station. Awakened frequently, the family regularly evacuated often returning to blown-out windows, collateral damage in Northern Ireland’s decades-long Troubles.

Did he realize that 25 years later the irony we’d be struck by in his remembered reference that building next door as “the playstation”?

My work centers on helping folks get “unstuck”. I support the journey through career changes and business start-ups.

The method is grounded in their stories.

We come to appreciate that one is not “Sean the accountant” or “Susan the mother of 4”. In their telling and retelling I come to know them as they begin to understand themselves. They describe where they came from, I reflect their stories back. They see themselves in a different light – and often start moving in a new direction.

Not one I choose for them, but one illuminated by the light of their own story-telling process.

Simply put storytelling is the way in which we share the full measure of our experiences.

Stories are delivered not entirely in the words.

And therein lies the magic.

An adolescent’s yarns spun about where they were and what they did reveals important truths, if only in what was left unsaid.

Believe them or not – the onus is on the listener to ‘take what you like and leave the rest’. Even carefully chosen words unconsciously deliver a message at that moment, and a richer one later when compared to other tellings.

Sometimes hard truths and experiences are so painful that while we initially take in the whole story, we describe only part of it to ourselves and others; it is how we are able to live with the pain.

Later, over many years in the retelling, we process the experience in safer times and places. Ultimately, we come to terms with the whole truth, by observing the edits and enhancements over time. The fear we experienced at the moment begins to dissipate.

Remaining silent keeps the experience as raw and the fear alive.

When we devalue storytelling we lose a way to communicate, even with ourselves. And to heal.

How many of us have told the story of a difficult experience many times?

In each retelling, we let go of a piece of shock, pain, or horror and come to terms with it. The episode remains planted in the past, but we continue to grow and learn new ways to cope. In retelling or reframing an experience, we apply new coping skills to the remembered event.

That Belfast filmmaker now tells stories for a living; more importantly, he has come to understand the grievous long term impact of having believed a life of midnight evacuations and shattered windows was “normal”.

He now knows it was not. It was traumatic.

The message to us that day – and the ‘why’ of telling his story, was to remind us that:

Fear is the Enemy of Creativity; Fear is the Thief of Dreams

Embracing a Prosperity Process

 “It’s the economy, stupid”

Join us for all or part of an exploration of what it will take to move beyond the peace process to prosperity.

How can we choose to overcome our collective obstacles to change?

What are the obstacles?

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June 21st , 5:30-7:30pm

Attitudinal Changes

 What are the obstacles to our “parking” the National question? Critical if we are to accept that 6 million people are a stronger market if cohesive, than 4 + 2 million.  

How do we adapt our language to allow for it?

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July 26,  5:30-7:30 pm

Vision

How do we focus our efforts island-wide and regionally toward growing complementary centres of excellence. Is this potentially an antidote to approaching FDI and economic development competitively?

How do we  showcase the advantages of the border? We undervalue its attraction to businesses with the advantages of  choosing a jurisdiction while still providing workforce and resource availability from Dublin and Belfast.

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August 9th 5.30 – 7.30pm

New Structures & Systems

 A serious discussion about specific quick and long term fixes to realistically approach economic development and sustainability. 

What Public/Private partnerships might emerge to tackle infrastructure projects?

What efficiencies might be achieved in delivering quality health care in the border region?

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You may have so much more to suggest, we welcome it. Consider joining the conversation, if not for yourself, then to inspire someone else.

Chatham House Rules* will apply. There can be no movement forward without a full, fair and frank discussion. This is not the place for posturing or politics. We ask only for respectful participation. The intention here is not to create an organization or a movement. It is to empower, catalyse and intrigue.

Please RSVP; Coffee & Tea will be served between 5 & 5:30; a participation fee of £20/€24 is requested; it is waived for supporting members of Empowering Change in Emerald Valley. Enquire about membership or contact Eve. 

*“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed”.

A post On Becoming Empowered Citizens described my sense that Ireland was, metaphorically, in an adolescent place ready to rebel against the authorities such as the church and state, and reclaim the power relinquished to them in absolute trust  and obedience for generations. The recent election certainly reflected a beginning.

That spoke to the way we have handled our political response to the economic crisis, however, we proved ourselves fully adult and authentic in our political identity as citizens of the Republic of Ireland.

The high points of the recent visit by the Queen have been well reported. Coverage of the ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance was as moving as my own first experience of it. I’ve little doubt the British head of state mourned the loss of her dear uncle and the British young who served their country. She did so while honouring the Irish who died.  The capacity to hold the grief on both sides is born of maturity.

I was pleased and proud to count myself as an Irish citizen most significantly during her visit to Cork. Her warm reception during the walkabout, not possible in Dublin, was a fitting appreciation for her effort to come. The maturity of calling a demonstration not in protest but in celebration of Cork’s Republican past a respectfully short distance away, was heroic and historic.

The peace process is clearly that, a process. We are not all at the same stage of acceptance, of reconciliation or even in agreement. But the gathering at Sullivan’s Quay was a respectful acknowledgment of our shared process. While accepting the reality of the democratically elected government’s invitation, there was a positive assertion of another narrative. We as citizens of this Island – whether North and South of the border each have our own narrative. Respect for each other and our stories is all that is required for the peace process to move forward.

The leadership of Sinn Féin has clearly struggled within their ranks to move their narrative to a place which allowed for the respectful treatment of this particular foreign head of state. Perhaps there is a lesson in that struggle for us all.

The words spoken were clearly well chosen and even well rehearsed on all sides. I believe that will be the way that we move the conversation forward. I would support all friends, colleagues and readers to come together and develop a language for the respectful treatment of each other’s stories. None of us can afford to take offense when it is not intended, nor can we be unthinking in our choice of language.

Let us choose our words carefully, in English and in Irish. Let us choose to be inclusive and respectful of our individual sense of our identities. Let us move forward in a way that allows us to never have to say of this period that there is much “which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”

Today I am energised and joyful.  Thank you to the folks committed to striving for “Excellence in Ireland”. I joined them in London. There was no better way for an Irish-American expat to spend Thanksgiving 2010.

Imagine optimism, ambition and a call for excellence by determined Irish folk and their supporters on both sides of the Irish Sea and across the Diaspora.

Imagine Enterprise Ireland presenting great news: 139 Irish companies entering the UK market in the last 18 months; an additional 78 to Europe. This is a committed group with a structured program of expanding markets for Irish businesses.  Imagine that Irish construction companies expand their capacity and strategically market with Portuguese and Spanish companies to open markets in South America, it’s happening!  This is not a bunch of bureaucrats ticking boxes; this is a dynamic group – aggressively bringing Irish business to the world stage, where larger markets and opportunities abound. Then imagine a technology product that is bringing the story of our innovations worldwide – via live feeds, videos and conferencing – not a boring report in sight!

Imagine a commitment to sustain the unique identity and contribution of the Irish to London illustrated in talks by our host at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith and by a representative from the Federation of Irish Societies.  The cultural centre is committed to programming that brings the richness of Irish culture to Irish emigrants, their descendants and a wider UK audience.  How Irish Are You? www.howirishareyou.com is an effort to have UK Irish emigrants and their descendants “tick the Irish box” on the UK census in March. An undercount in the last census impacted allocation of funds to specific community needs – getting it right could have an impact on funding from leaner budgets going forward.

Imagine a movement to bring the vote to all Irish citizens living abroad.  Ireland and Greece are the only EU countries who don’t give their citizens abroad the vote.  Imagine that if you are forced to emigrate for work, you would be ensured a say in electing and empowering new leadership who will pave the way for a recovery that could bring you or your children home.

Imagine a social network of Irish people worldwide, helping each other find jobs or comfort in the diaspora. A message delivered via video at the London launch of www.Rendezvous353.com came from Jordan.  (paraphrased) I’m sorry, I’d love to be there but we had a previous commitment to raise a glass and watch “the game” among our Irish friends here. Imagine mining the site for Irish business & social contacts worldwide!

Imagine a book of the found photographs of Father Francis Brown whose chronicle of Ireland and her people between 1894 and 1937 has just been published;  priest, philosopher, WWI chaplain – a Renaissance man and lover of all places and things Irish. His  grand-nephew has preserved this bygone era. A bold footnote to our meeting and – a reminder of what we love about the place the people entirely unchanged by current politics and economics.

Imagine frank talk by a Belfast entrepreneur who told us about  Northern Irish Connections. Beyond this effort to engage the Diaspora with an ambitious program to highlight and report back how best to reach folks who will add value to our island world; he peppered all our conversations with reminders of the subtle adjustments to language and simple nuance which will help us move from the still strained and sensitive relationships of the peace process to the more easy comfort we will need for the prosperity process.

Whatever you can imagine and visualise, it can happen; I’ve shared their vision – and an Ireland of excellence is within our reach.  Start grasping.

To lend a hand or add your voice to embolden our leadership in this prosperity process, contact me eve@eveearley.com, comment here – or join www.RendezVous353.com for links to some of these folks and their efforts!

Father Browne at Home is available from the author; contact me for further information.