The Roman Forum:
Your Excellency, what distinguishes the Irish community in Italy, given the country’s ancient ties with Catholicism?
There’s always been a strong presence of Irish religious people in Rome for obvious reasons, Rome being the centre of the Catholic Church. For many years Irish clergy were educated here but the numbers have declined an awful lot in the last 20 years or so. That presence is not nearly as strong as it used to be. Nevertheless there are important Irish colleges – the Pontifical Irish College is the main one and quite an important part of the Irish community. More and more you have a different kind of Irish person, a lot for business, as well as younger people looking for a bit of experience working abroad. So the Irish community is a rather dispersed one really. We reckon there are up to about 2,000 Irish in the Rome area. The Embassy doesn’t necessarily meet them all but the Irish Club of Rome acts as a focal point and the centre of their activities is the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Has the Irish Embassy’s work changed in recent years?
I suppose it has changed. For example, Irish weddings are big business in Italy. About a thousand Irish couples get married here every year, probably about 75 per cent are in Rome, which is quite a significant bit of business for the embassy because we have to process all the paperwork, the legal permission, but it’s a nice part of the job, helping people to get married.
We have a lot of consular work too which is dealing with people from outside the EU coming to us for Irish visas. Ireland has got a reputation in recent years of being a good place to go both to work and to study so there has been an extraordinary upsurge in interest from people from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and even Latin America wanting to go to Ireland for one reason or another and this has contributed to a significant increase in our consular work.
The work in recent years has also become a lot more commercially oriented. We try to do more to stimulate interest in trade and tourism to Ireland so we assist our promotional bodies who are all based in Milan and act as the Rome agency.
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day – what celebrations are planned throughout Italy?
Well, the embassy is involved in events both in Milan and Rome that week as we have a minister visiting Milan for promoting business with Ireland. In Rome I always have a reception for the diplomatic community besides the broad Irish community and their friends. That is on 17 March at my residence and we usually get about 1,000 people attending. Then on Saturday evening there is the Celtic Ball, the organisers are expecting about 250 to 300 guests. It is a big social event on the Irish calendar here. Then there is an Irish music festival during the few days after St. Patrick’s Day, which is called the Rome Fleadh. There’s a range of Irish musicians that will be performing and there are other events in Florence and Cagliari. And of course there are small celebrations going on that we only hear about but don’t manage to attend.
Then there’s the shamrock. It is said that it doesn’t grow anywhere outside Ireland but in fact there is a priest at St. Patrick’s Augustinian church in Rome who grows it on the roof to hand out during the celebrations.
Do Italians and expatriates from other countries also participate?
A broad cross section of people comes to my reception that includes many Italians who have links with Ireland in one walk of life or another: they have studied there, had business relations or a cultural interest in the country. Many Italians have a particular interest in Irish literature for instance. And then there are many other nationalities as well who come as ‘friends of Ireland’ in a much broader sense.
What lasting memories will you take back with you to Ireland?
Iconsidered myself extremely fortunate to be posted to Rome as it’s a wonderful city and Italy is a marvellous country. The variety of landscape and the richness of cultural life, history, art and architecture available in this country are fantastic. You can’t go anywhere really without finding something that is fascinating in one way or another. The food, the wine and the sunshine, for most of the year, is great. And Italians are very nice people. We seem to get on very well, that is Irish people and Italians. Generally people are helpful and sympathetic. People give out sometimes that things don’t always work like clockwork here and it’s true, they don’t, but there are other compensations. To spend a few years in Italy really is a privilege.
Interview conducted by The Roman Forum, sister publication of The Florentine
