Welcome to our January newsletter and Happy New Year!  Please spread the word about the project. In particular, you might send this newsletter on to others whom you think may be interested so they can keep up-to-date with Ireland XO developments!  You can use the Forward to a Friend link at the bottom of this post.

In this issue:

• Ireland XO Website Launch - read all about the launch night with RTE's George Lee as special guest
• Ireland XO Website - news on the latest features and how to join your parish
• LAMA Awards 2012 - the Ireland XO project has been nominated for the Best Community-Based Initiative
• The Business TV Series on RTE One featuring Ireland XO - if you  missed it, here's another chance to catch it.
• GAA-Ireland XO San Francisco Event, 4th December - Ireland XO and the GAA agree to work together in attracting the Irish abroad to their nearest GAA club, wherever they are based.

And finally, a heads up! Ireland XO is planning to roll out a national Roadshow later this Spring where we will be presenting the Ireland XO progress across the country. Keep an eye out for a date near your part of Ireland.

Best regards
Your Ireland XO Team

GAA-Ireland XO

San Francisco Event, 4th December

The GAA and Ireland XO launched an highly innovative programme to attract many more of our Irish Diaspora to GAA sports in December in San Francisco. Read the full press release here.

Image shows: Gerry Staunton, General Counsel, Department of Foreign Affairs, Christy Cooney, President of the GAA and Mike Feerick at San Francisco Treasure Island

RTE’s George Lee says Ireland XO is key to Ireland’s Economic Revival

Speaking at the Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO) launch of its revised website, www.irelandxo.com in Loughrea on 12th December last, special guest RTE’s George Lee delivered a passionate and enthusiastic endorsement of the work of the Ireland XO programme and its volunteers who are now growing countrywide.

Read the full press release here.

Ireland XO Website
Exciting new features and future developments

The website now has a presence for every parish in Ireland and it is possible to post messages nationally, at province or county level, and most importantly at parish level.
 

Very soon, every townland in every parish will be added to the site. When completed the site will have well over 100,000 pages of information (not to mention all the other information we plan on adding as time goes on). Once this is completed, we will work on adding the 1901 and 1911 Censuses, organised within parishes on a townland by townland basis.

Sign up for your Parish on www.irelandxo.com!

Register on the site and let us help you in your genealogy search.

To post messages or content on Ireland XO, you must first have an account and join the parish(es) where you want to post messages. There are three steps:

1. Registration

2. Login

3. Join a parish

LAMA Awards 2012
Ireland XO nominated in Best Community-Based Initiative Category

The Ireland XO Project has reached the finals of the LAMA (Local Authority Members Association) Awards 2012! We've been shortlisted in the category Best Community Based Initiative. The category winners will be announced at an Awards ceremony on February 11^th, 2012 at the Crowne Plaza in Dublin, hosted by the well-known RTE presenter, Miriam O’Callaghan.

The Business TV Series – RTE One,
Monday Dec 5th at 8.30pm

View the segment on Ireland XO here.

There are 70 million people who claim Irish descent worldwide but are we tapping into them? There’s a lot of talk about the diaspora helping us in our hour of need and in Episode 4, George Lee interviewed Mike Feerick, Founder & Chairperson of Ireland XO to find out exactly how they can do that.