The Gathering 2013 was officially launched in the US at the end of September, as Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar and Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons spoke to an audience of about 400 at the Consulate General of Ireland in New York. Speaking at the launch, Gilmore said, “There’s probably nowhere more appropriate to launch this event. He continued: “I know that my own family, very often we get together on sad occasions. One of the things that people talk about is that ‘Wouldn’t it be great to get together on a happier occasion?'." Varadkar said that while the past couple of years have been difficult in Ireland, with high unemployment and falling living standards, tourism offers a way to fight back. He thought that attitudes in Ireland towards the diaspora had shifted. “In many ways when Ireland had our boom and we became rich all of a sudden, we also became very arrogant,” he said. “The change in Ireland really has forced us to look at those relationships again.”
