Module 5
Diaspora and Displacement
“This great narrative of dispossession and belonging, which so often had its origins in sorrow and leave-taking, has become - with a certain amount of historic irony - one of the treasures of our society.”
~ Mary Robinson, Cherishing the Irish Diaspora, 1995
Emigration has shaped Irish lives for centuries in wave after wave - from the flight of the “Wild Geese” through the devastation of the Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór), to more contemporary waves in the 1950s, the 1980s, and today, when housing and the cost of living push another generation abroad.
Some of us know the experience directly; we have left Ireland ourselves or lost loved ones to emigration. Many others carry it some generations removed, through a parent, a grandparent, or further still. Yet whenever emigration has touched our lives, its ripples linger in our depths: ripples of loss and longing, strands of hope, renewal, reinvention. Recurring negotiations of wondering what might have been if we had left, stayed or returned. Echoes of grief and love.
These energies live and breathe within the Irish field that we are all part of, on and off the island - turned from, worn as honour, or idealised into myth.
Yet Ireland holds profound resources for healing, belonging perhaps the most powerful. Coming together across generations and distance opens the possibility of repair
Bill McCart
Bill McCart is a long-term student of Thomas Hübl.
He is a certified practice group facilitator, co-leads a weekly practice group, and is a mentor in the practice leader training. He is also a certified Collective Trauma Integration Process facilitator and in 2024 co-led a year-long exploration, “The Legacy of the Great Famine in Ireland and the Irish Diaspora;” Simon Courtney was one of his co-facilitators. He is very interested in Ireland and its diaspora, and how people in both worlds can come together to heal the wounds of colonialism. Bill is retired and lives about an hour north of San Francisco, CA.
“They opened a place in Irishness for the diasporas that were, in many ways, the truest products of its history. It brought home the reality that had been obscured in the idea of emigration as tragedy and shame: we are a hyphenated people.”
~ Fintan O'Toole, We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland