A cháirde dhil,
As this St. Patrick’s Day of 2025 will be my 14th and thus the final occasion when I will be wishing you the very best in your hopes and lives at home and abroad, as President of Ireland, I have thus felt encouraged to reflect on the themes that I have addressed in two sessions of the Presidency.
They were themes that included the need to think of the economy in an embedded if instrumental way within a set of values that sought equality, inclusion, the fullest capacity to participate and share creativity, and that we would seek to achieve this by doing so beyond any borders other than the best instincts of our shared humanity. That, I suggested, is the best expression and achievement of our Irishness.
As I leave the Presidency, I would like to repeat my belief that words and how they are used matter, and furthermore, that the ideas which they draw on matter.
I spoke of these issues both at home and abroad, convinced as I remain that it is possible to achieve a world that answers these challenges with shared values.
As I reflect on the discussions that occasionally arose following those normative excursions of mine, the response far too often seemed to end with ‘it is interests that matter’ and the suggestion that values are for a rarer visit.
When Irishness has been at its best, it has made real achievements in collapsing this false division.
For example, there are millions of people around the world living in lesser conditions of poverty, hunger, displacement or imprisonment who, as a result of the efforts of so many Irish people and others who have offered their lives and skills in the interests of humanity, with respect for difference, share a belief that the most important security that makes life possible in its fulfilment is a security that eliminates poverty, one that offers the right to food, shelter, education, the basic necessities of life.
Such Irish people, and many with them, believed that achieving such a security also provides the best opportunities for participation, peace, democracy and they had a vision that can offer real choices within longer-term thinking.
It is a fallacy to think that an abstract view of interests must not only be in opposition but, at times, seek to defeat such values.
Those who obdure and endure with a normative vision, be it from the poorest to those in power, are taking steps on behalf of all humanity, and the very life of our planet, when they reject the suggestion that we should live by, and encourage, an abstract version of accumulation and unrestrained greed, one entirely devoid of taking of the welfare of the ‘Other’ into account, a vision for living replacing the inter-connectedness of the world by an insatiable sense of the self.
As we celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day, we do so in a world that is increasingly challenged by forces of division, inequality, and the flagrant degradation of our natural world that impacts the consequences of climate change on those least responsible for it.
Too many of our Irish people will have experienced the dreadful consequences of Storm Éowyn at the end of January. May I thank all those who worked to address the severe consequences, including all of the first-responders, for their efforts.
Internationally we see borders closing to those who flee in desperation, the cruel withholding of aid from those most in need. Those relief efforts are experiencing in too many places the devastating consequences of a refusal to listen to the voices of the most vulnerable among us. We are listening, in places of influence, to a rhetoric that seeks not to unite, but to separate. An invitation to a limited and limitless version of the self is becoming the prevailing discourse.
In such moments, it is appropriate to ask ourselves: What kind of world do we wish to shape to allow for the future? Will we allow fear to triumph over solidarity, as do those who seek only power so as to strip away the bonds that connect us to one another? Are we to abandon the project of achieving peace in diversity?
Such questions, I suggest, require an answer that addresses not just our present sense of interacting crises, but also our responsibilities to all those generations yet to come whom we must consider as having the right to live on planet Earth in harmony with nature, to share life and be secure from the consequences of the legacies of bad thinking and insatiable accumulation and consumption.
We must reject any cynicism that suggests that ideals are naïve or unachievable and instead recognise that it is collective ideals, when pursued with courage, that have brought about the most transformative moments in human history.
Ideas matter. Words matter. The sharing of both matters. If we allow the language of inevitability of a simple dominating version of the connection between economics and life to take hold, if we accept that war is inevitable, that inequality is inevitable, that environmental destruction is a necessary cost of progress, then we abandon the possibilities of transformation, not just for ourselves but for future generations.
Reflecting on the themes that have been central to my Presidency, I remain convinced that there are alternative ways of living together on this fragile planet — ones shaped not by the narrow pursuit of self-interest, by the politics of exclusion, but by the pursuit of the shared opportunities, joys and resonance that are available with each other and with nature. Policies with the economy seen as embedded and in an inter-generational moral timescale that can offer such an alternative.
All of this is possible by us working, in our different ways, together.
There is a hope, we can take encouragement in the story of Patrick, one of choosing the path of understanding, the path of shared responsibility, where our differences are not exploited as threats, but embraced as the richness of our human condition. It offers an emancipatory alternative story of ethical courage, emerging as a symbol of hope and light in our present circumstances.
As we reflect on Patrick’s message on our National Day, let us do so, taking it as inspiration to develop a greater shared consciousness of the existential plight facing humankind, both of now and the future, of life as it is being lived and experienced, exploitatively with unnecessary strife and suffering, seeking instead an institutional framework that sees difference as an opportunity for an enriching co-operation towards shared goals.
To the people of Ireland, muintir na hÉireann, may I thank you for the trust you have placed in me over these past 14 years. It remains the greatest honour and privilege to serve you, to meet so many of you in your communities, to witness your compassion, empathy and kindness in so many different ways. It is something that I will always cherish - what you offered to Sabina, my partner in all that I have sought to achieve and myself - and we both appreciated and will always recall the warmth and support that you offered us, and the joy of your company.
I am convinced beyond any doubt that, in spite of all the challenges we face, there remains within the Irish people a profound and unyielding commitment to seeing beyond the self, to seeing the other as a friend, the principles of generosity, decency and care for one another.
On this St. Patrick’s Day 2025, let us invoke the spirit of Saint Patrick by acknowledging our shared responsibilities to each other, to our global family. Let us resolve to forge together a renewed sense of solidarity, reaffirming our commitment to the dignity and well-being of all, in building a just and compassionate world, one which reflects the best instincts of our humanity.
May I wish you all, wherever you may be and in whatever circumstances, a joyful, peaceful, and hopeful St. Patrick’s Day.
Beir beannacht an lá is do’n todhchaí.