REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT IRISH COMMUNITY RECEPTION, IRISH EMBASSY, VIENNA
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT IRISH COMMUNITY RECEPTION, IRISH EMBASSY, VIENNA, MONDAY, 17 JULY, 2006
Dia dhíbh a cháirde go léir. Ta an-áthas orm agus m’fhear chéile Máirtín bheith anseo i Vienna. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte sin.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet so many members of Vienna’s Irish community. You link Ireland and Austria in the strongest possible way just as generations of men and women have done for many centuries. For all the differences of distance and language, of history and circumstance, the Irish and Austrians share a Celtic heritage still evident in the very name of this beautiful city – for the word “Wien” is of course we are told from the Celtic word “findu”, meaning bright or fair – as in the Irish “fionn”.
Those ancient ties tell us that the Irish and the Austrians have never been strangers to one another and the ties which you represent today tell us of a contemporary vibrant and easy friendship between our two peoples. Here in this room are Irish people who have made their homes here. They love their adopted homeland, give to it their talent, their time, their lives but they also love their native land and with those two hearts they become unpaid ambassadors for Ireland in the streets, communities and workplaces of Austria. The human bridges you create keep faith with an age-old friendship and secure its future in another generation. You ensure that contemporary Austrians and contemporary Irish know each other well, have access to each other’s culture and history and are encouraged to keep deepening and expanding the friendship between our two countries.
I would like to pay a particular tribute to the work of the Austro-Irish Society, represented here this evening by its Vice-President and Committee members. For over thirty years it has brought together Irish and Austrian people for regular social and cultural gatherings. Your work keeps us curious about each other and helps ensure that the passage of time does not obliterate the many ways in which our two histories and peoples intertwine - from those eighth-century Irish monks like Saint Colman (or Koloman), who is buried in Melk Abbey not too far from here, and Saint Fergil (or Virgil) who was the Bishop of Salzburg for forty years, to the twelfth century monastic settlements founded here by Irish Benedictines. Echoes of that time are still evident in Vienna’s great Schottenstift monastery, once home to many Irish monks, more recently the venue for the annual St Patrick’s Day Mass and more recently still the very apt point of departure for the first ever St Patrick’s Day parade which was held this year in Vienna.
We think, too, of how true a friend Austria was to Ireland at her most difficult times, often providing asylum to those escaping religious and political persecution at home. The famous names of Count O’Donell, Count Von Browne and Count De Lacy played critical roles in the service of the Empress Maria Theresa and Irishmen also reached high political office under the Habsburg Empire - among them the legendary Count von Taaffe the distinguished nineteenth-century Prime Minister. It is a matter of great pride that the Austrian descendants of these great Irish families have remained loyal to their Irish roots and are a valued part of the global Irish family today.
On the same day in 1955 Ireland and Austria both joined the United Nations and brought to that crucial organisation the voices and the values of two nations whose wisdom and experience had distilled into an abhorrence of war, a deep faith in the protective power of international law and a formidable commitment to the protection of human rights. Ireland and Austria have worked closely together on UN peacekeeping operations and have made a significant contribution to the strengthening of international peace and security.
Membership of the European Union has brought our two countries into a vigorous and dynamic partnership as two small but influential member States of the Union. We have each taken advantage of our membership of the Union to build strong and resilient economies and to respond to the challenges of globalisation. As two smaller countries with a traditional economic dependence on larger neighbours, we have each managed to diversify our markets in recent years and to achieve significant levels of economic growth. I am looking forward to my attendance tomorrow morning at a business breakfast which will look at ways of intensifying cooperation between Irish and Austrian business interests. In fact there are many opportunities to pursue common interests and objectives in this rapidly evolving European Union and our two Governments are pursuing these actively – for it is in and through these efforts that the success of the Union is secured.
Austria has just made its own unique contribution to the Union’s future through its highly successful EU Presidency. It was not an easy period for the Union yet the Austrian Government faced confidently into the challenges, achieving important breakthroughs. I would like to congratulate Chancellor Schuessel and his colleagues on such very effective stewardship of the Union during which period Ireland was very happy to lend its full support to our Austrian friends.
Tomorrow I will have an opportunity to discuss these and the many other issues we share an interest in, with President Fischer. But for tonight we share each others company in this most elegant of cities and in this magnificent country which has, over many years of private visits, come to be a place of special affection for Martin and for me and for our children. To make a State Visit is a pleasure and an honour. To meet the people who walk in the footsteps of Fergal, Colman and Taaffe, who weave a web that keeps on drawing us into each others’ lives, that too has been an honour. Thank you for being here and every success in your future work and lives here.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.