We expected fireworks but not an astronaut gate-crashing the Campfire

There had been torrential rain across Ireland in the days before the Big Irish Echo Campfire while the US was being battered by Hurricane Laura so I certainly appreciated there might be problems lighting the Campfire on Friday.

And so it proved.

According to our agenda, the sparks were to fly at 4pm Irish Standard Time. (It wasn’t until last week, struggling with Campfire speakers spanning 11 time zones that I even learned the term Irish Standard Time existed!)

When the clock struck four in Belfast, Connla McCann was in the director’s chair at the NIAVAC studios ready to hit the switch to broadcast President Michel D. Higgins’ pre-recorded opening message (see video above).

Our co-conspirators across America were waiting for the starting gun for the first live panel. It was 11am in Connecticut where moderator-cum-Spitfire Eileen Scully was ready with her questions; 8am in San Francisco where the wonderfully-named chair of the United Irish Societies (of which there are, appropriately, 32) Liam Frost was suited, booted and rarin’ to go; and 5am in Big Island, Hawaii where Dr Brett Carey was ready with a hearty Aloha. In New Orleans, Louisiana, court clerks were enjoying a lie-in as Judge James McKay III, immediate past-President of the AOH, swapped his black robes for a golden-green tie and our Zoom conversation on ‘Irish American Societies Leading the Coronavirus Fightback’.

But far from being linked across to my céad míle fáilte to get the show on the road, the 938 delegates who had signed up for the Campfire (the biggest-ever number at any event the Irish Echo has hosted) saw…an old movie clip of the moon landing over and over and over again. I was, as you might expect, on fire with my rousing introduction to our ‘attendees’ only to learn afterwards that no-one could see me. 

Cue panic and much cursing in the Belfast control room before, 24 minutes later, the word came from the internet gods that we were ready to go again. And so it was take II for my Presidential introduction. And we were off. 

Seven hours later, midnight Irish-time, the most expansive and most-inclusive gathering of Irish American activists in a generation, featuring 70 speakers, mayoral messages from Boston, Philadelphia and Albany, musical interludes and VIP interviews, came to a close.  It had been made possible by many sponsors, led by Terry Cross of the new Hinch Distillery in Co Down but including TG4, Foras na Gaeilge, Tourism Ireland, NI Bureau, An Solas Nua in Washington DC, the AOH, The Irish American Writers and Artists, the Irish American Partnership, EPIC – the Emigration Museum, Crescent Capital, IrishCentral.com, the Society of the Friends of St Patrick, the Irish American Business Chamber & Network in Philly, Joseph Aquino of JACRES in New York and our many friends across the US.

Over the coming week, we plan to slice and dice the content into easily watchable portions on our Campfire website but for now, if you register, you can see my double take on the opening and then treat yourself to some marvellous contributions from every part of the US where the Irish are gathered.

You will emerge bleary-eyed for sure if you watch the whole seven hour Campfire marathon (Connla McCann remarked as we closed up that she felt like she had just gotten off a transatlantic flight) you will also be inspired, buoyed up and convinced that, true to our Campfire mission, Irish America will not just survive this awful pandemic but emerge stronger and better while keeping the bridge to Ireland open.

So a big thanks to our speakers and guests and a special bow to those of you who chipped into the Irish Echo’s GoFundMe appeal to keep the presses rolling. With your help, we smashed through our $10,000 target. 

See you at next year’s Campfire when I will be armed with digital fire-lighters.