REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY THE MAYOR OF TRONDHEIM THURSDAY 16TH OCTOBER
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY THE MAYOR OF TRONDHEIM THURSDAY 16TH OCTOBER, 2008
Martin and I are delighted to be here today in Trondheim. Our thanks to Mayor Ottervik’s for her kind and generous hospitality.
It is a great honour that Their Majesties have joined us in Trondheim today. I know that you have close ties with this city, the ancient capital of Norway and the city where His Majesty was consecrated King. Ireland and Trondheim also share many close ties, as evidenced not least by those members of the Irish community living in Trondheim who have come today. Dia dhíbh a chairde. It is a pleasure to see you all.
I might mention that shortly after our arrival here, when we passed a road sign for Hell, I wondered whether this State Visit was taking a turn for the worse. However I was greatly reassured when I was told that in Norwegian “hell” can mean good luck. I regard myself as very lucky to be in Trondheim, this famous Viking city and to see at firsthand the natural beauty of Norway with its magnificent breathtaking landscapes.
The sea has always been the highway connecting our two societies. The Vikings most likely first landed somewhere along our Northern coast. One of the earliest records of the Vikings in Ireland is their “visit” to Rathlin Island just off the coast of County Antrim in 798. Like many tourists since, they brought home souvenirs for many Irish artefacts, which would have originally graced our monasteries in the eighth and ninth centuries, have been found in the Viking graves surrounding Trondheim.
A millennium later, Irish fishermen were using drontheim boats, named after the town from where they originated. These Viking designed boats were for a long time the reliable friend of Irish fishermen along the north-west coast of Ireland for they were well suited to the big seas of the North Atlantic. An Antrim fisherman, referring to the drontheim’s seaworthiness, remarked that “going into a big swell was like sliding into a basin of cream”. I am looking forward very much to visiting Rissa after lunch to learn more about our common maritime heritage.
Today, Norway is still involved in shipbuilding in Ireland. Harland and Wolff, the company that built the Titanic in my hometown of Belfast, is now owned by the well-known Norwegian company Fred Olsen and there are records of the timber trade between Trondheim and Belfast dating since 1720.
The ocean brought the Vikings to Ireland and the Vikings brought a new form of trade to our small island nation, reshaping its history, leaving their imprint on faces, names places and practices. The ocean is again providing Ireland and Norway with new opportunities – among them in the field of renewable energy. I attended a seminar on renewable ocean energy at Marintek this morning. My thanks to NTNU, Enova and Sustainable Energy Ireland for making this important seminar possible. Ireland and Norway are leading the way in the development of this new technology which has the potential to unlock the abundant resources of wind and wave along our Atlantic coasts. Investment and research now in ocean energy technology will put both our countries in a lead position in the future story of energy - a major global issue of urgency and critical importance.
I am glad to have followed in the footsteps of the pilgrims from the Middle Ages and made a visit to Nidaros Cathedral, the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world. I’m afraid I cannot say that I walked all the way from Oslo like the medieval pilgrims but like many others I was privileged to pay homage to St. Olav and to see the magnificence of a Cathedral which speaks so eloquently of Trondheim’s past as capital not simply of Norway but of a North Atlantic empire stretching to Greenland and North America.
A special word of thanks to the Scola Santa Sunniva choir, named after the Irish Princess who later became the patron saint of Western Norway. Their haunting singing in the cathedral this morning made the visit to Nidaros Cathedral doubly memorable. We leave Trondheim with many such memories and in particular the memory of a gracious and warm welcome to a place rich in history and in beauty.
Thank you. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.