ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF PRESIDENT MÁDL AND MRS. MÁDL
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF PRESIDENT MÁDL AND MRS. MÁDL AT DUBLIN CASTLE, MONDAY, 21ST FEB
Your Excellency, President Mádl and Mrs Mádl,
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure, President and Mrs Mádl, to welcome you to Ireland on this State Visit.
Let me welcome you also in the way we express it in our own language, Céad Míle Fáilte, meaning one hundred thousand welcomes and in the way you express it in yours, Üdvözöljük Irországban.
We are very honored to have you here with us this evening.
I am especially glad that you have been able to come here at this time during this busy last year of your Presidency because I was anxious to return the hospitality and friendship shown to my husband, Martin, and me when we were State guests in your country in April 2000.
I recall the feeling of pride as the first President of Ireland to come to Hungary on a State Visit, in taking my place at the Ceremonial Welcome in Kossuth Square outside Budapest’s great parliament building.
We have a collection of valued memories from the opportunities the visit afforded us to come into contact with Hungarian people from all walks of life, to learn of your history and culture and your ambitions as a nation.
We also have the fondest memories of cities like Győr and Herend, each unique and fascinating, each overwhelmingly kind to the stranger.
That visit took place only five years ago and yet so many remarkable changes have occurred even in that short time. The accession of 10 new Member States to the European Union, on 1st May last during Ireland’s Presidency is acknowledged as a landmark achievement in our common history. Hungary has now taken her rightful place at the heart of the new Europe.
The people of Ireland and Hungary are no longer simply friends but partners with a strong vested interest in developing the closest possible ties of cooperation between us. Your visit is an important part of setting out on this new shared journey together and making its potential come alive.
We know that ties between our countries stretch back to earliest times. Historians tell us that a cleric from Hungary, Lorinc Tar visited St. Patrick’s Purgatory at Lough Derg during the medieval period, and that even he was not the first Hungarian to do so. There have been many colourful and engaging connections since then. The Bishop of Clonfert, William Lynch, when fleeing from Cromwellian persecution in Ireland, took refuge in the cathedral city of Győr in the mid-1600s and presented the city with a portrait of the Virgin and Child, which to this day is still lovingly cared for in the cathedral and is an object of special veneration for the people of Győr . The interest taken by your great 19th century leader, Louis Kossuth, in the Irish Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, is especially valuable given his importance in Hungary’s struggle for independence. Another particularly valuable link is Arthur Griffith’s interest in the political example of Hungary during the late 19th century, an interest acknowledged by you this afternoon, Mr President, when you laid a wreath at the monument dedicated to him in the gardens of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
And then there is the association between James Joyce’ s novel Ulysses and the city of Szombathely in western Hungary, the ancestral home of the Bloom family, an association which was marked during the Bloomsday centenary last year by the unveiling of a statue of Joyce in the city. We very much welcome the importance attached by the people of Szombathely to the city’s association with Ireland through the life and work of James Joyce and applaud also the great efforts they have taken to maintain it. We hope the events planned there for this summer will further deepen these important cultural ties.
Regrettably there was also a long period in the 20th century when the possibility of maintaining a meaningful dialogue between our two peoples was severely restrained by the geopolitics of the time. The Second World War and the great hardships visited upon your country in the period afterwards, did not allow for much real engagement between our countries. We have both been reminded of those war-torn years in Europe in all their stark reality as we traveled together, you and I, just a few short weeks ago to the 60th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland.
In the dark decades following the Second World War, we in Ireland were, deeply conscious of your plight, and never more so than during the tragic days of October 1956 when the legitimate aspirations of the Hungarian people for the freedom and sovereignty which you now enjoy, were so cruelly crushed.
Today, we meet some 15 years after Hungary’s transition to democracy, in this new age of possibility and prosperity sure in the knowledge that our bi-lateral relationships are flourishing as never before. The period of our Presidency of the European Union last year provided the opportunity for a considerable expansion in inter-governmental contact with visits by your Prime Minister and other Ministers to Ireland and likewise visits by our Taoiseach, Tánaiste and other Irish Ministers to Budapest. Those visits have led to a very welcome expansion of cooperation in many areas, including investment, trade, educational and cultural exchange and tourism. Both national airlines, Aer Lingus and Málev, now operate direct scheduled services between Budapest and Dublin. So the scene is set for the relationship between Ireland and Hungary to enter its most exciting phase in our histories.
Mr. President, as you enter the closing months of your Presidency, I take this opportunity to register my appreciation for the work you have carried out during your period in office and also for your leadership as a Government Minister following the transition to democracy. Especially inspirational have been the very human, personal qualities you have brought to your office and I recall that in your inaugural speech as President you said that “the shortest way between two persons is a smile”. You stressed the importance of courtesy in ordinary human exchange as well as the articulation of the good in political discourse. These are qualities which you have amply demonstrated in your own life. They are values our slightly cynical age could do with more of. I wish you every joy here in Ireland and every success as you continue your work.
And I now invite you, distinguished guests, to raise your glasses in a toast: to the health and happiness of President and Mrs. Mádl, to peace and prosperity for the people of Hungary and; to continued friendship between the peoples of Ireland and Hungary.
Egeszegere - your health.