NEXT September, a major conference on Irish emigration will convene at University College, Cork. The theme - "The Scattering" - will bring together an array of academics from different disciplines. As one of her last public functions, the President, Mrs Robinson, will open the conference. And that is in keeping with her candle in the window at the Aras an Uachtarain to remember the diaspora.
Mr Tim Pat Coogan, the former editor of the much missed Irish Press, will be there; so will Ms Ruth Ann Harris of Boston College; Prof Joe Lee of UCC, who has written extensively on migration from these shores; and a host of other experts in the field. The conference, in its way, will be a flagship. A signpost to something even more important.
This is the era of global communications. For youngsters, a web site on the Internet holds no terrors - their elders are much more likely to find the whole thing inhibiting. UCC, in the person of Mr Piaras Mac Einri, of the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education, is about to use the Net to develop a unique concept in the study of Irish migration, bringing a worldwide audience together to discuss the issue, historically and in its present context.
It's an exciting prospect. Working with the Cobh Heritage Centre; Queen's University, Belfast; other universities around the world; the Ulster/American Folk Park at Omagh; and emigrant groups wherever they may be found, his plan is to create a network that will be interactive, on line, and available to one another at the press of a computer button.
Mr MacEinri said: "We are going to establish the Irish Centre for Migration Studies at UCC, and hopefully with the aid of EU funding. But it will not be a physical entity so much as a facility - a global library if you like - to enable Irish groups and scholars around the world to tap into a database on the question of Irish migration. We intend to share information with other universities and Irish groups, and to explore not only emigration to the US and the UK, but the more modern phenomenon of immigration and the fact that so many Irish people these days are going to mainland Europe.
"We want to hear what they have to say about the development of Irish music and the new pride in it around the world. We want to bring together sociologists; geographers; people from the music department, the department of education at UCC and people from other disciplines in universities around the globe. The aim is to enable people in Australia to exchange information with people in Europe or the US."
The web site number for the centre will be http://www.ucc.ie/icms. And there's a lot to be discussed. When the project gets up and running, the information flow should provide a fascinating insight into the entire question. How do Irish people define themselves in a new environment? How do they cope? How do they relate to home? The new centre will toss these issues about using modern technology, and will create a database available to all interested parties. This will not he a museum, rather an entirely new concept of how the contents of history should be catalogued.
Between 1956 and 1961, some 21,203 people left Ireland. In the following five years, the migration came to 80,605. Between 1966 and 1971, the figure was 53,906; while between 1971 and 1979, some 108,934 people returned. During the years 1979 to 1981, a further 5,045 people left.
Between 1986 and 1991, the outflow was massive, with 134,170 people leaving, and then, between 1991 and 1996, according to the preliminary figures, 3,185 people came back. The centre will attempt to make sense of all this and to explore why and how people, for many reasons, conflict not the least of them, are arriving on our island as well as leaving it.