REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT AN IRISH COMMUNITY RECEPTION
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT AN IRISH COMMUNITY RECEPTION ROYAL YORK HOTEL, TORONTO
Dia dhíbh a chairde.
Is mór ar onóir agus is mór ar pléisiúr dom bheith anseo libh anocht. Mile bhuíochas dibh as an gcuireadh agus an failte.
Martin and I are delighted to be back again in Toronto, meeting up with old friends from our State Visit back in 1998 and making some new friends too. So much has changed since we were last in Toronto, not least that this beautiful city is to have its own memorial to the Irish Famine at the newly-created Ireland Park which I am privileged to open tomorrow. The Park pays tribute to the darkest period in Irish history when a million of our people starved to death and millions more emigrated during the Great Famine in the middle of the 19th century. They came here, diseased and traumatised, overwhelming what was a small city but a city which was to prove it had a very big heart. It has never lost that heart or that memory and it is wonderful that today a prosperous and sophisticated generation, and one with roots in all of Ireland’s complex and competing identities, has together remembered so generously the tragic men and women who created unbroken bonds of kinship between Ireland and Canada.
The Park is a credit to all those who have planned, supported and delivered it. And if it makes us very proud of our Canadian Irish family as it undoubtedly does, I hope the good news from Ireland makes our family and friends here proud in return for, in recent weeks, we have seen the start of an unprecedented era in the history of the island of Ireland, involving a unique confluence of peace, prosperity, parity of esteem and partnership.
On the long journey that we called the peace process we were blessed in our friends here in Canada. You contributed millions to the International Fund for Ireland, volunteered the services of distinguished Canadian public servants who undertook crucial assignments in Northern Ireland and encouraged us in so many important ways on the path to reconciliation. To the Canadian Government, to the Canadian people, to all our friends here, to our Irish family in Canada I say a heartfelt thank you. Just as you gave those famine Irish a future in the 19th century you have helped give 21st century Ireland a future to look forward to.
The children of Ireland’s emigrants in every generation have made us proud – they have powered their way into every sphere of life, revealing their genius and their talents, putting them in the service of the nations their forefathers adopted as theirs. They love their Canadian homeland but have a heart too for Ireland, her story and her cultural heritage. In this generation Ireland has become a country of net inward migration for the first time in its history. Today we have a world-class economy, high economic growth and full employment. But we remember our indebtedness to our emigrants and we are grateful to have around the world this huge, talented family, this network of care for one another, this complex and inspirational web of cultural, economic and political connections.
In and through this visit I hope to reinforce those connections and to support all you do to keep them alive and vibrant from generation to generation. You are great ambassadors for Ireland here in Canada, you are the people whose lived lives have given us the gift of wonderful relations between our two governments and peoples, growing two-way trade, investment, travel and cultural exchange. You make me very proud and you help make Ambassador Kelly’s job a lot easier! I am the person who makes his life difficult for preparing for a visit from your President is far from easy. To the Ambassador, his wife and Embassy team I say a huge thank you for all you have done to make this a memorable and very happy visit.
Those whom we commemorate tomorrow on the newly-named ‘Eireann Quay’ would I am very sure be so very proud of their successors here in Canada, proud of how they work so lovingly together across all of history’s vanities and I hope they would be proud of the Ireland that is at last emerging from the long shadows cast by those vanities, to reveal the best Ireland ever.
Thank you all very much for the kindness of your welcome to us here this evening.
Go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.