Aside from investigating Ireland‘s economic recovery and catching the Christmas spirit in Dublin, Global Atlanta visited Leinster House, the parliament, during a December visit, meeting with Senator Susan O’Keeffe.
The senator from the county township of Sligo is heading up the planning for the country’s celebration this year, 2015, of the birth 150 years ago of W.B. Yeats, who often is acknowledged as the 20th century’s leading poet.
The celebration should be of great interest to many in Atlanta since Emory University houses the W.B. Yeats Foundation and has played an active role over the years in underscoring the importance of the poet’s contribution to Ireland’s cultural life and his influence around the world.
Ms. O’Keeffe also is playing an instrumental role in the preparations for the remembrance of the Easter Rising, when Ireland rebelled against colonial rule of Britain in 1916, which will take place throughout the country next year.
Global Atlanta also had a brief visit at the parliament’s bar with Michael Noonan, Ireland’s finance minister, who had just returned from a 10-day visit to China. Mr. Noonan said that Russia “was the country to watch in 2015.”
Additionally, Global Atlanta conducted interviews with the representatives in Ireland of the Georgia-based companies N3 LLC and NeoMed Inc., and at the headquarters of the Irish company Datalex plc, which has an office in Atlanta. More to come in subsequent stories.