ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF A STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF SYLVIA CARTWRIGHT
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF A STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF H.E. THE HON. DAME SYLVIA CARTWRIGHT
Governor-General and Mr. Cartwright, members of the New Zealand delegation, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is my great pleasure to offer you Governor-General, céad míle fáilte, one hundred thousand welcomes to Ireland and to this dinner in your honour this evening. I have many fond memories of my own visit to New Zealand eight years ago now, back in 1998. My hope is that the welcome you will experience on your visit to Ireland is as warm and generous as that extended to me on that occasion by your predecessor, Sir Michael Hardie Boys and by the people of New Zealand.
The relationship between Ireland and New Zealand has been forged over generations by emigrant Irish and tested periodically on the rugby field. The affinity we share is strong and real. It sits on a shared history that stretches back to the first Governor of the then Crown Colony, Captain William Hobson, an Irishman, born in County Waterford more than two centuries ago in 1793. It also sits on vibrant contemporary connections from trade to tourism, from football to international politics.
The long distance between our two peripheral and small island nations has never made strangers of us. How could it when so many thousands of our Irish family undertook that long journey to a future free from poverty and lack of opportunity at home? For most of them it was a one-way journey and the accounts of the hardships they encountered on their journeys across treacherous oceans would leave anyone in awe of the sheer courage and tenacity of these intrepid people. How they must have been driven mad by despair and heartache on that long voyage and we hope their hearts soared when they finally reached that land of legendary beauty that was to be their new home. Today we celebrate the fact that over half a million New Zealand citizens now claim Irish descent.
Many of them maintain a strong interest in things Irish. I was delighted Governor-General, to hear of the establishment of the Eamon Cleary Chair of Irish Studies at the University of Otago in your own home town of Dunedin. Through the work of scholarly research undertaken there, the story of the Irish contribution to New Zealand will be revealed to new generations and the cultural ties between Ireland and New Zealand will be refreshed spontaneously year in and year out. Already strong cultural ties between Ireland and New Zealand ensure a steady flow of performers and projects in both directions and we are grateful too for the work of the New Zealand Ireland Association which does so much to develop and sustain a healthy mutuality between our two peoples.
Shortly, we will be sending some special visitors your way. Our rugby team will travel to New Zealand later this month to play two games against the All Blacks. It is always a great occasion when we meet on the rugby field – even if Ireland has perhaps had to be stoic in defeat a little more – no, it’s an evening for honesty – a lot more than we would have liked but we are confident that our day will come, and perhaps very soon! You will forgive us if we lay claim to ownership of at least part of the All Black success story. It is a source of great pride to us that the most distinguished All Black captain, credited with being the father of New Zealand rugby, the legendary, Dave Gallagher was Irish-born - from Ramelton in County Donegal. Here in Ireland we were delighted last year when members of the touring All Blacks party, attended the unveiling of a plaque in his honour at his birthplace. It would be hard to find a better example of the complex human web that links two such far off places and makes them almost like neighbouring parishes.
Dave Gallagher was to lose his young life fighting at Passchendale in World War I. Many thousands of other young Irishmen died alongside him fighting in the name of their new homeland. Their tragic sacrifice as emigrants who returned as soldiers to the Europe they had left with such high hopes of a new future, is another shared chapter in Irish and New Zealand history, a history through which the world was changed.
With two women playing leading roles this evening it would be hard to avoid mentioning another important world changing event which links Ireland and New Zealand. New Zealand was the first country in the world to acknowledge the right of women to vote in 1893. Kate Sheppard, leader of the New Zealand suffragette movement though born in Liverpool spent her early childhood years in Dublin. And of course her key ally in that successful campaign, the then Prime Minister, John Ballance, was an Irishman, born in my home county of Antrim!
From the nineteenth century onwards, your country has had a deserved international reputation for progressive and enlightened social policies, including the development of the welfare state. Today, both Ireland and New Zealand are modern success stories and both rank among the most open economies in the world. Here in Ireland the tide of emigration has thankfully been reversed for the first time in a century and a half and we are for the first time experiencing what it is like to be a country of net inward migration. It is an exciting and positive development but such rapid change poses the challenge of comfortably and effectively integrating different ethnic groups into Irish society and catering to their needs. In doing so, we are grateful to have friends like New Zealand, a pioneer and model of multiculturalism, tolerance and respect for different cultures, to turn to for guidance and advice.
Governor-General, your welcome visit gives us pause to reflect on our common history and values, to remember and to be grateful for our kinship and our cultural compatibility. It is a timely opportunity to deepen our friendship so that in these more prosperous and dynamic times our peoples stay closely involved in each others’ lives and fortunes, ever curious about each other and ever anxious to ensure our contemporary links are as fully developed in every sphere, as we between us, can make them.
I would now ask you to join me in a toast - to Her Excellency, Dame Sylvia Cartwright, Governor General of New Zealand, to the people of New Zealand and to friendship between our two countries.
Go raibh maith agaibh. Thank you.