REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE IRISH COMMUNITY AND FRIENDS OF IRELAND, RIO
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE IRISH COMMUNITY AND FRIENDS OF IRELAND, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, 27TH MARCH
Dia dhíbh. Tá lúcháir mhór orm bheith libh tráthnóna ag an tionól seo de Ghaeil agus de cháirde na hÉireann.
Boa noite a todos.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Irish men and women and friends of Ireland, good evening to you all. Thank you for that warm and generous welcome. My thanks also to the wonderful musicians who have just provided us with a terrific sample of Irish culture and extended the St.Patrick’s Day spirit by ten days.
This is my first visit to Rio de Janeiro and I like every visitor before me, have been captivated by the physical beauty of this city and the spontaneous warmth of the Carioca people. I am beginning to understand why the name “Rio de Janeiro” exercises such power over the imaginations of people from all parts of the world.
The Irish community in Brazil is small but Rio de Janeiro has its fair share of them and as two nations renowned for our friendliness, it is not surprising that these “people-to-people” links characterise the happy relations between Brazil and Ireland.
Today’s Ireland is a wealthy first world nation but with a third world memory, the humbling legacy of a time not so very long ago when we faced poverty and lack of opportunity. Our greatest natural resource is and always has been our people. They have placed their genius and their talents at the service of many nations, including Brazil.The large Irish missionary community here has over generations brought Ireland to Brazil and Brazil to Ireland. Their great work of unselfish care and generosity is a source of great pride at home. It is a formidable ambassadorship for Ireland and Ireland’s values. I am looking forward to tomorrow’s visit to Fr. John Cribben and his colleagues in Magalhães Bastos.
We are very lucky to have these fine ambassadors for everything that is humanly decent and I have been privileged to see their work among the world’s most overlooked people in every continent. They have never sought recognition or praise, never complained about the loneliness of working far from family and home and now that their numbers are falling they face the challenges of refocusing and reorganisation with great courage and faith. Here they are securing the future of their work by placing a heightened emphasis on greater local participation and collaboration and I know we in Ireland wish them well in all their endeavours.
Many people have invested in the creation and sustaining of the marvellous human ties that bind Ireland and Brazil. We each have wonderfully vibrant cultures and we are each a curious people so we are ripe for the development of cultural exchanges and already the work done here is very impressive. The network of centres for the study of Irish literature at some 13 Brazilian universities is a tremendous achievement for which I warmly thank the Brazilian Society of Irish Studies whose President is Dr. Munira Mutran of the University of Sao Paulo. We are grateful also to the Fluminense Federal University in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, which has made an important contribution to the development of that network. I know that Dr. Maria Helena Kopschitz of the University has done Trojan work to bring Irish literature, especially the works of Yeats and Beckett, to Brazilian audiences and to develop academic links with Ireland including with my own alma mater, the Queen’s University, Belfast, where she was on the lecturing staff for a time.
Where friendship abounds, where cultural compatibility is found, there too trade links flourish and I am fortunate to have been accompanied on this visit by a trade delegation composed of successful Irish firms representing a wide range of industries from software to education. The major success of the Kerry Group with its investments in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais is a spur to further commercial interaction between Ireland and Brazil and a sure way of bringing jobs, opportunity and prosperity to the people of both nations.
St. Patrick in whose month we gather, was an emigrant to Ireland. His active love for the Irish people changed our history. Our global Irish family is still held deeply in his embrace, friends to each other, clan and kin to one another no matter how great the time or distance apart. Ireland has friends and respect everywhere in the world, earned for us by our emigrant brothers and sisters through whom the name of Ireland, the character of the Irish is showcased. Thank you to each of you for all you have done to bring Ireland into Brazilian hearts and to make these two fascinating nations the very best of friends to one another.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.
Muito obrigada – thank you very much.