We would like to sincerely thank the new Japanese Ambassador to Ireland, Manabu Miyagawa, and his team for their warm hospitality in welcoming the IJA Chairperson, Catherine Grennell-Whyte, to the Embassy for a meeting on 5th January.
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The Ireland Japan Association greatly values the close and longstanding relationship between Ireland and Japan, and we look forward to working closely together to further strengthen the ties of friendship, understanding, and cooperation between our two countries.
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Catherine Grennell-Whyte, IJA Chairperson and H.E. Mr. Manabu Miyagawa, Ambassador of Japan to Ireland
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The Embassy published the following announcement about the visit:
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On 5 January, Ambassador-designate MIYAGAWA Manabu met Ms. Catherine Grennell-Whyte, Chairperson of the Ireland Japan Association. Both sides looked back at economic and cultural exchanges between Ireland and Japan generated through the IJA’s activities down through the years. They also exchanged views on future opportunities for further cooperation.
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Ambassador-designate reiterated his congratulations on IJA’s receipt of the Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2025 for their outstanding contribution to exchanges between Ireland and Japan. The Embassy of Japan in Ireland will continue to collaborate with the IJA for even deeper and diversified relations between our two countries for many years to come.’
L-R: Keiko Nakata, Embassy of Japan, Catherine Grennell-Whyte, IJA Chairperson and H.E. Mr. Manabu Miyagawa, Ambassador of Japan to Ireland
. Photos: Embassy of Japan in Ireland
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https://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/Catherine-Grennell-Whyte-and-Manabu-Miyagawa-Jan-2026.jpg20481821ijahttps://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IJA_logo_RGB_low_res_WEB.gifija2026-01-13 15:30:062026-01-15 16:10:07IJA Chairperson meets with Ambassador Miyagawa at the Embassy of Japan
On 30th November the IJA members and friends joined our annual Bounenkai End of the Year Party which was hosted at one of the most popular and authentic Japanese restaurants in Dublin – Daruma.
Hiro Ino, IJA Council, thanked the guests for their support to the association and invited everyone to enjoy themselves and celebrate the end of the year at Daruma. We were delighted that H.E. Mr. Norio Maruyama, Japanese Ambassador to Ireland, and Ms. Keiko Nakata, Embassy of Japan, joined our Bounenkai celebrations. Ambassador Maruyama addressed event guests and wished everyone a wonderful evening.
Event guests were treated to a traditional Japanese Izakaya style dinner and had the opportunity to taste variety of Japanese sake.
We would like to thank everyone – our individual and corporate members as well as friends and supporters who attended this event. We appreciate your continued support to the IJA throughout this year, and we are looking forward to many other occasions to meet in 2024!
A very big thanks goes to Hiro Ino, IJA Council, for his time, support and help to make this event such a great success, and the wonderful team at Daruma for hosting our event and making sure everyone had the best time during the evening.
Photos: Tsugumi Yamamoto, Kevin O’Neill
https://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/IJA-Bounenkai-2023-4-scaled.jpg19202560ijahttps://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IJA_logo_RGB_low_res_WEB.gifija2023-12-04 15:00:572023-12-05 15:43:33IJA Bounenkai End of Year Party 2023 | Photo Gallery
To celebrate summer and all the beautiful seasonal flowers, the IJA Council organised a beautiful, seasonal Summer Ikebana Workshop for our members. The workshop was presented by the IJA member and Ikebana instructor Mrs. Tomoko Ozaki on 26th August.
Workshop participants had a unique opportunity to learn about Ikebana traditions and principles, make their own Ikebana arrangement and change the way how they think about floral displays. We would like to thank everyone who attended this event and hope it was a great experience and learning opportunity for everyone.
A wonderful surprise for our workshop participants was the visit by H.E. Mr. Norio Maruyama, Ambassador of Japan to Ireland, and Ms. Keiko Nakata, Embassy of Japan in Ireland.
We would like to thank Eva Reavley, IJA Council, for all her work and support to make this event such a success, and our event hosts – Oomi Travel – for welcoming us at their cosy and beautiful office, and looking after us during this event, and Gopan Bakery for very tasty Japanese baked treats.
Joseph (14) has always loved to discover new and challenging things to learn. He learned to read when he was two years old, and by the time he was ten, he was teaching himself Chinese characters. He loves learning new languages and currently speaks Polish, English, and Irish, and is learning Japanese, French, and German. Joseph is also a pianist and has won a few competitions in Ireland. He is currently doing RIAM Grade 7 at the age of 14.
His passion has always been languages, different cultures of the world, music and programming. Joseph is also very interested in Japanese culture and language, and it is his dream to visit Japan one day.
After starting to learn Japanese at home by himself, he realised that Japanese is a very complex language, with thousands of different characters, which led Joseph to wondered how a hypothetical typewriter would work with such a writing system. After finding out about what currently exists and is available, he decided to make an electric version that fits all the characters used in Japanese onto a standard QWERTY keyboard. There are still industries where typewriters are in use, and this project is a robust and easy-to-use solution.
There were more than 1700 projects submitted for the competition of the 2023 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. The judges chose 550 for the final exhibition at RDS, Dublin, and Joseph’s project ‘エレキタイプ – A Hybrid Japanese Typewriter’ was among the finalists.
‘I very much enjoyed talking to you about your project on a Hybrid Japanese Typewriter. I had no idea how difficult it is to type Japanese and I was surprised by the complexity of the problem. You presented your project with clarity and confidence. Well done!’ – Dr. Peter Taylor, Judge at the BTYSTE 2023
Micheál Martin, Tánaiste, Eamon Ryan, Minister for the Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport, and Ivana Bacik, Leader of the Labour Party visited exhibition at RDS, Dublin and showed interest in Joseph’s project.
Joseph also had a wonderful opportunity to meet with Ms. Keiko Nakata, Embassy of Japan in Ireland, who was delighted to learn about his invention and received a gift book about Joseph’s project.
The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is much more than a competition – it is the experience of a lifetime for the students and teachers who take part. Designed to raise schools’ engagement in the critical subjects of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM), the Exhibition calls upon students aged 12-19 years from all over the island of Ireland to showcase innovative science and technology project.
Photos and videos: Agata Mudrak personal archive
https://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/IMG-20230110-WA0023.jpg1600720ijahttps://ija.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IJA_logo_RGB_low_res_WEB.gifija2023-01-25 10:00:572023-01-25 13:04:08A Hybrid Japanese Typewriter project among finalists of the 2023 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition
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