Are you a Twin? Does your Twin live in Canada, The United States, Australia, or Europe? If so Twin Fest Ireland is offering you the opportunity to be reunited in Ireland this August with your twin.

The number of visitors to Ireland from the Middle East has increased 15 percent from the same time last year according to the latest figures from Tourism Ireland. There has also been an 8 percent increase in the number of visitor visa applications from last year.

With an estimated 70 million around the world who claim Irish ancestry, tourism was an obvious market for the government  to enrich the struggling economy.  The government established 2013 as a year to explore all that Ireland has to offer calling it “The Gathering” and have already seen positive results. 

B&B Ireland has reported major rise in booking following a more digitalized system.

Heroes throughout North America, Britain and Europe, especially those with a connection to Ireland, are invited to the Emerald Isle this summer for a celebration of their bravery.

Being Irish not just an Irish thing, of the 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish ancestry, only about 5 million are actually Irish citizens. This year, anyone with the slightest connection to Ireland has been invited home for The Gathering 2013. Some have viewed the initiative cynically, as a way for a bankrupt state to haul in a few extra tourist dollars. However, in the hands of ordinary people, the Gathering may yet prove to be a profound thing.

I finally made the trip across the Atlantic this year to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in my ancestral home, for The Gathering. I grew up in Boston listening to my grandparents talk about the country they left behind.  

President Michael D. Higgins was VIP guest on the viewing platform at Dublin’s St Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday before he flew next day to Rome for Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass on Tuesday.
Higgins was among a half-million who watched the Dublin parade at which Westlife singer Nicky Byrne was grand marshal.

They say you can never go home. Even so, while Ireland’s Minister for Tourism tries to lure the secretive Irish out of their silence, we diaspora hope against all odds to be found, to be brought into the fold, home.

Failte Ireland, Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority, has said that The Gathering is already benefiting the Irish economy.

Ireland has gone green for St Patrick’s Day – and the country has been painted white as snow fell and the cold snap deepened.

Paul Byrom, one of Ireland’s premier tenors, has partnered with The Gathering Ireland 2013 and Tourism Ireland as an ambassador of Irish music on Ireland’s global outreach initiative.