SPORT ALSO RAISING IRELAND’S PROFILE IN LAND OF RISING SUN
WE touched on how Ireland is now ‘big in Japan’ in our special St Patrick’s Day column showcasing the global celebrations last month.
But our national profile is doing so well over there we thought The Green Stuff should delve a bit deeper and celebrate our success in the Land of the Rising Sun.
The team at EPIC Museum in Dublin’s CHQ building have done brilliant work in researching the Irish influence in Japan.
They told the Stuff that two of the biggest winners over there at the moment are Irish music/dancing and sport.
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Irish dancing schools are commonplace in Tokyo and Irish sport is well-known after our soccer and rugby fans took the country by storm at the
World Cups in 2002 and 2019 respectively.
There are Japanese musicians in traditional Irish bands – and even a native master uilleann pipe maker now.
Former Deputy Head of
Mission at the Embassy of Ireland in Tokyo, Peter
Neary, lived in Japan for four years and he explained that the Covid shutdown gave rise to “a renewed appetite and enthusiasm” for the
St Patrick’s Day festival’s return in 2024.
Peter continued: “Japanese people feel passionate about Irish music, even if they can’t quite put words on why.”
In the late 1990s Riverdance took audiences by storm and Irish dance schools can now be found in Tokyo and Yokohama. There is also an all-Japanese trad group called De Domhnaigh, who have a growing fanbase, and Makoto Nakatsui from Hokkaido is one of the few master uilleann pipe craftsmen in the world.
It is this resonance between cultures – particularly in music, art, and literature – that is so enthusiastically celebrated by the Tokyo Parade.
But Ireland remains a lesser known country, culture and people and while our diaspora out there might still find themselves explaining that Ireland is not Iceland, England or Scotland, our relative obscurity can work in our favour.
CRAIC AND CEOL: Micheal Martin with the Toyota Ceili Band during a visit to Japan in 2022; (inset) Japan-based trad group De Domhnaigh