REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A CIVIC RECEPTION, LIVERPOOL TOWN HALL WEDNESDAY, 4 JUNE, 2008
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A CIVIC RECEPTION, LIVERPOOL TOWN HALL WEDNESDAY, 4 JUNE, 2008
Lord-Lieutenant,
Lord Mayor,
Councillor Bradley,
Mr Hilton,
Councillor Baldock,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Ireland, it is said, is the land of “céad míle fáilte” - one hundred thousand welcomes - and in the warm and generous welcomes we have received in your city I can certainly recognise one of the many shared characteristics between Liverpool and Ireland. Check our DNA and you will find we are close kin to one another which is why over the years that when we have visited this great city, we have always felt completely at home.
To be here as you shine throughout Europe as European Capital of Culture is a special thrill because, of course, for a long time Liverpool has been dubbed the unofficial second capital of Ireland. So I hope you don’t mind if we share your pride. Martin and I are delighted to be here, and we thank you very much for your kind invitation to visit in this most special of years.
This is a joyful year for Liverpool and we want to share that joy. All around me I have seen the results of your careful preparation, your innate optimism and your irrepressible appreciation of life and of course Liverpool’s unique genius. In this moment - your moment - you have done yourselves proud.
Liverpool without the Irish is impossible to imagine, so deeply woven are they into that vibrant tapestry that has been woven by millions of lives, lived over so many changing times and circumstances. The culture you showcase owes more than a little to those lives for the Irish have featured in the story of Liverpool since at least as early as the 14th century.
But it was in the darkest days of the Famine, the Great Starvation, when a million Irish died and a million more came to or through Liverpool in the most wretched of circumstances, that the shared history of Ireland and Liverpool most emphatically shifted kilter.
Those who settled here helped build up the great Victorian city of Liverpool, becoming an integral part of your economic, political, and cultural life. Their histories are your history, their lives, yours and yet still indelibly ours also. Now their descendants live with mixed identities, a love of Ireland, a love of Britain.
They are, I hope, deeply reassured to see the once fraught relationships between Ireland and Britain grow so healthy, happy and relaxed, the best they have ever been at any time in our history. I hope they are reassured too by the growing peace and good neighbourliness on the island of Ireland as the old conflict which once also blighted Ireland - and indeed this great city - becomes a footnote on the pages of history and a new culture of partnership emerges. We are surely a blessed generation to have lived to see Liverpool come so brilliantly into its own and Ireland too.
It is a privilege to be here today to join in your celebrations, and to pay tribute to Liverpool, to her people, her remarkable past, her shining present and her hope-filled future.
Thank you.