REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A DINNER HOSTED BY THE BAILIFF OF JERSEY, SIR PHILIP BAILHACHE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A DINNER HOSTED BY THE BAILIFF OF JERSEY, SIR PHILIP BAILHACHE, HIGHLANDS COLLEGE, JERSEY
It is a real joy to visit the Bailiwick of Jersey and to experience its unique beauty, its atmosphere and its welcome. I thank you, Sir Philip, for offering us such lovely hospitality.
I have just flown from a ceremony this morning in Donegal to commemorate the Flight of the Earls, the great native Irish leaders forced out of Ireland by the forces of colonisation, four hundred years ago. They were very nearly shipwrecked close to these very shores and clearly were worried that the islanders might not give them the kind of warm welcome that we have been privileged to receive. One of them wrote in his diary of the time, that their likely treatment at the hands of what he colourfully described as the “inimical merciless heretics” who inhabited the Channel Islands “would not be as at a meeting of good friends in a foreign land”.
His theory was never tested but today we do indeed meet, Ireland and Jersey, as good friends and good neighbours and as people who have a history infused with many overlapping and shared memories as well as histories and indeed geographies that render us intriguingly unique.
As island people and small islands at that, we have both developed a resilience in the face of our own vulnerability. We have, over generations, layered up cultures that are rich, deep and distinctive and in these globalised contemporary times we have displayed an openness to engagement with the wider world that has kept us fresh and dynamic.
Jersey may draw on its long history for inspiration but it is not afraid to embrace a progressive present to guarantee its secure and prosperous future. Both Jersey and Ireland have embraced the globalised economy, playing to their respective strengths. Just as Jersey has become a world leader in the financial services sector, so too has the Irish economy transformed itself from the country which missed the first industrial revolution to a country which is a leader of the second.
A complex mix of widened access to education, membership of the EU, social partnership, a young well-educated population and attractive corporate tax regime ended the days of high emigration and endemic low achievement bringing instead high levels of inward investment, the rapid growth of indigenous entrepreneurialism, inward migration and vast improvements in quality of life and opportunity. This problem-solving generation has even managed to bring a win-win resolution to the difficult, political conflict which has, for too long, bedevilled relations within the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Great Britain.
The potential of the Good Friday Agreement is unfolding before our eyes, as old enemies sit together in Government in Belfast, working with genuine respect and shared determination on behalf of all the people of Northern Ireland. A new era of partnership is growing apace between North and South and of course relationships between Dublin and Westminster are the best, the most collegial they have ever been in our history.
The reshaping of the future includes new institutions which draw Ireland and Jersey and Guernsey into ever closer connectedness and communication, particularly through the British Irish Council. Its mission is to "promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands". Already Jersey is playing a valuable role in the Council and in the Council of Ministers. It is wonderful to see officials from Ireland and Jersey work together on matters of common interest covering a broad range of issues, from drugs to the knowledge economy to transport linkages.
In coming here today I have sought to play my own part in building the bridges of friendship that will help us to fully develop and keep on enhancing our relationship. Irish men and women have been coming to Jersey for generations, some like myself as visitors or tourists captivated by the legendary beauty of the place, others as migrants in search of opportunity or a different kind of life.
Earlier today I had the opportunity to meet some of the Jersey Irish, men and women who are proud of Ireland and of Jersey, who love both places, both cultures and who are in fact ambassadors for both. Their vibrancy and the range of activities in which they are involved shows that they are playing a full and comfortable part in community and business life in Jersey, the unfounded worries of their ancestors 400 years ago notwithstanding.
They are the best links between us - the human links, the hands and faces of friendship and good neighbourliness. I hope the friendship and the cooperation between Ireland and Jersey will grow ever more firm, ever more fluent in the years ahead and I thank you again Sir Philip for hosting this most convivial event. We will leave the Bailiwick of Jersey with very happy memories of a place where we did indeed have a meeting of good friends.