Home News 5: The Digital Diaspora

Home News, RTE Radio 1, December 22nd, 7.30pm Riverdance co-founder John McColgan’s new project WorldIrish.com, is a website that aims to connect the Irish diaspora in new ways. The site has a team of journalists who help source material and stories that they feel may be of relevance to the site’s members, many of whom are based outside Ireland. In the final episode of this series, I drop into the offices of World Irish and also hear from some of the emigrants who have gotten in touch with the site, such as 107-year-old Mae Collins who lives in New York. I also examine the extraordinary story of the Irish Emigrant, which started as an email between colleagues in the 1980s and turned into one of the oldest online publications in the world. I go inside the Irish Times, where senior editors talk about how that newspaper is reaching out to new readers across the globe through its Generation Emigration project. And finally, emigrants, editors and journalists talk about what the future may hold for Irish community newspapers outside the republic of Ireland.