Ireland is leaning into policies of openness to build long-term growth. gettySome governments see immigration as a threat. The Irish government, with a longer lens and one of the largest global diasporas, sees immigration differently: as a wind that carries its power around the world and home again.The country of 5.5 million tapped its diaspora – which it defines as 76 million people worldwide – to rebuild after the financial crisis of 2008-09. Now, Ireland has a quietly booming economy, with plans to jumpstart an innovation ecosystem by encouraging Irish entrepreneurs to return home, passing tax breaks on venture capital, and deepening business networks abroad. To put itself on a long-term footing for economic growth, it is creating even more ties to powerful people around the world who feel connected to Ireland.The strategy is leading to more immigration, which causes some political tensions. But Ireland is sticking to its pragmatic and values-driven identity. "We respond to immigration in the positive," said Neale Richmond, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, in an interview in March. "We know what it's like to be marginalized immigrants.” He recalled a 20th century sign in the United Kingdom: “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs." Since 2022, around more than 100,000 people a year have immigrated to Ireland annually — a record total, in a country of 5.5 million. The number of Irish citizens returning home has been robust and consistent: around 30,000. The number of U.S. citizens immigrating to the country via pathways including heritage and profession, though only about 5,000 in the last year, is up sharply.Neale Richmond - Minister of State for International Development and DiasporaPhil Behan / DFAMORE FOR YOURichmond was expansive about what he calls the "affinity diaspora" — people with no direct Irish blood but a sense of solidarity forged through shared history. The Irish government is expected to release a new diaspora strategy this month.The Path of Wild GeeseIreland has an advantage: much of its large diaspora lives in relatively wealthy counties, including the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Waves of Irish left the country, starting with soldiers during the European wars of the 1700s (called ‘wild geese’), the potato famine in 1845-1848, and continuing over the next 200 years, including after World War II, in the 1980s and during the early 2010s. Irish immigrants often did dangerous work that native-born citizens wouldn’t, in the military, or stepping into uniformed services like the New York City Fire Department, or laboring in construction or in the chemical works in Glasgow. These days, people of Irish descent have ascended to high positions in business, politics and elsewhere – famously, U.S. presidents of Irish descent helped negotiate Irish peace. But the memories of persecution linger across generations – and the communities forged during earlier decades create networks that can be activated. Those networks, thriving beyond and through national barriers, help an innovation ecosystem immensely, because the networks can move capital and talent rapidly toward the best ideas and most skilled operators. Innovation is the key to long-term economic development, though it’s easy to lose sight of that fact during political crises.A Talent Business Gets A Boost From The DiasporaFour years ago, Elkstone Partners raised the largest early-stage venture fund in Irish history, closing at €100 million and drawing support from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Enterprise Ireland. Diaspora investors played a role, not only putting money into the fund, but more importantly, establishing connections for companies in the Elkstone portfolio to markets and customers in the United States.“We built a venture advising panel, 40 Irish individuals,” said Elkstone founder Alan Merriman. “It’s been enormously powerful.” Now, he is adding Irish Americans to the panel. He pointed to big Irish communities in Boston, Atlanta and Cleveland. Edwina Fitzmaurice, a corporate vice president, is another well-placed Irish diaspora member.Alan MerrimanConor McCabe Photography.The way this works in action, explained Merriman, is that when one of its portfolio companies needs to test a product, or has a product that needs an early customer, introductions make a big difference. Merriman offered the example of Myles Gallagher of Cleveland, who made a fortune building a firm, Superlative Group, that specialized in sponsorships and naming rights. He invested in the fund, and connected an Elkstone entrepreneur to a major hospital system in the United States.“Ireland doesn’t have the benefit of institutional capital. We haven’t had the history of the Rockefellers,” he said. “And the Irish public has got very little invested in the stock market – it goes to DNA, and a famine mindset.”If you invest in an Irish company through a venture capital fund, you get a 30% deduction on your total Irish income in the year the investment is called. Elkstone is now raising a second fund. It’s already had a €30 million close, with a target of €150-200M. The firm's portfolio includes nearly 30 companies — including standouts like LetsGetChecked, Soapbox Labs, and Manna. It had a notable exit from Mesh Cybersecurity, at three-times returns, Merriman said.Elksone has dropped its minimum investment threshold to the legal floor of €100,000 to make it accessible to a broader pool of Irish-Americans, he said.Some new funds are connecting to networks in Europe. Venture capitalist Leyla Karaha, a Dublin resident originally from Tanzania, is a social entrepreneur and one of the founders of Equisscore, which invests in social enterprises in Europe started by underrepresented founders. Her two co-founders are Alison McMurtrie and Tiana Whitehouse.The Irish government also runs “Back for Business,” which supports Irish emigres that want to return and start companies. In its ninth year, it is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is focused on voluntary lead entrepreneurs, who facilitate roundtables of peers. Diaspora Strategy In A Changing Geopolitical LandscapeExpansive diaspora strategies are becoming more common as war and changing geopolitics throw up barriers between nations, and as evidence builds that they work. In an era of declining trust in institutions, networks of people rise in importance. Late last year, I wrote about the way the Armenian diaspora had been instrumental in a data center deal in the former Soviet republic. At least 79 countries in the global south have one or more fully dedicated diaspora engagement institutions and 107 have an institution at least partially involved in diaspora engagement, according to the European Union Global Diaspora Facility.Information that flows informally, from person to person, along conduits of trust, values and common heritage, is more valuable when institutions can no longer open doors. As a journalist, it’s harder to get a handle on these informal flows of people – the U.S. citizen who spends several months a year doing deals in Ireland, or the Irish executive who lives a two-continent life. But they’re clearly going to rise in importance.“Diaspora engagement is important … in entrepreneurship, investment promotion, talent attraction, trade, tourism, research, development and innovation. … Ireland embraces the agility of diaspora impact whilst understanding we must invest across the board to support and engage the diaspora,” wrote Martin Russell, one of the founders of The Diaspora Institute, headquartered in Dublin, in an email to me. “Ireland’s history has shown us that in times of turbulence and volatility, our diaspora represents … consistency.”Starting in the early 1990s, Ireland’s diaspora strategy sent money abroad, through Irish Associations, to help the vulnerable, elderly and poor among Irish emigrants globally. Since 2004, over €268 million has been granted to more than 900 organisations in 53 countries, according to the Irish government. The 2026 budget will be €17.5m, the highest to date. Generally, over 50% of the ESP is allocated to Great Britain, and 25% to the United States. Some 60% each year is granted to frontline welfare service providers working with elderly Irish emigrants, and other vulnerable groups. "We were an extremely poor country, but we have minded our diaspora,” said Richmond.Investments Flow Both WaysWhen Ireland’s economy nearly collapsed after the global financial crisis of 2008, investment flowed the other way. “In 2011, we were broke,” said Richmond. “The next prime minister (Enda Kenny) had to rebuild the Irish economy. We had a nascent tech industry. He slavishly spent the first five years trying to rebuild investment, with a real heavy lift put on Irish America.”The strategy paid off. There are about 970 U.S. subsidiaries currently in Ireland employing roughly 211,000 people and supporting work for another 169,000 people indirectly, according to the U.S. State Department. Richmond noted that there are even more American employees of Irish companies in the United States, working for such giants as Kerry Group and Accenture. It helps that Ireland is an English-speaking country, a common law jurisdiction, and is well-connected by 20 flights a day. In 1990, President Mary Robinson famously placed a lamp in the window of Áras an Uachtaráin, the presidential residence, as a beacon to Ireland's emigrants. These days, the candle also looks like a cautious welcome to many people in Ireland’s far-flung community who may want to shelter in an open economy.