Address by President McAleese at the State Dinner in Honour of H.E. Johannes Rau
Address by President McAleese at the State Dinner in Honour of H.E. Johannes Rau, President of the Republic of Germany
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with very great pleasure that I welcome you, President and Mrs Rau, on this your first visit to Ireland. On behalf of all of us in Ireland I bid you Herzlich Willkommen, or, in the words of our traditional Irish welcome: Céad Míle Fáilte - one hundred thousand welcomes.
You come to us as President of a State to which we feel bound by the closest ties of friendship. At first sight the dissimilarities between our two countries seem great. Ireland was once described as an island, off another island situated off the mouth of the Rhine. Germany, with over twenty times our population, has more land-borders than any other European partner and is a great central crossroads from East to West and from North to South. Our historical experience has also been very different. Yet despite these contrasts which might have been expected to engender a psychological distance between us, our relationships are in fact characterised by a strong pattern of mutual empathy and rapport at every level.
Today our young people know each other as partners in the European Union but the contemporary ties build on history. Many Irish saints or scholars helped shape Germany’s extraordinarily rich medieval heritage and we are particularly proud of our Celtic missionaries such as St. Killian of Würzburg, whose memory is still revered in Germany. The influences flowed both ways. A succession of German scholars helped unlock for the Irish people the extraordinary legacy of their Celtic past. Exactly 150 years ago, Caspar Zeuss published his ground-breaking Celtic grammar. He and the distinguished scholars who succeeded him, such as Windisch, Zimmer, Thurneysen, Pokorny and Meyer were a significant influence on the literary revival we experienced in Ireland, and ultimately on our deepening consciousness of national and cultural identity.
A fascinating book could be written about the countless individuals from one country who impacted, often in unexpected ways, on the lives of the other. Tomorrow when you visit Dáil Eireann, our national parliament, you will be in one of several eighteenth-century Irish masterpieces designed by Sir Richard Cassels, a name which disguises a German architect of genius born in Hesse-Cassel. The industrial development of your own native Rhineland, Mr. President, owed much to Thomas Mulvaney, the son of a well-known Irish painter, an engineer who founded a brilliantly successful series of coal mining enterprises (named eloquently the Shamrock and Hibernia mines and the Erin Company) as well as many other pioneering ventures, including the Düsseldorf stock exchange. These are just a few of innumerable historic instances where the stories of Ireland and Germany have intertwined.
Today, we welcome about three hundred thousand German visitors to our shores every year and we know that these informal ambassadors take back home a love of Irish music and culture which keeps our contemporary relationships vibrant and fresh. I hope that any imbalance in tourism will be amply compensated in 2006, when Irish soccer fans hope and pray they will have compelling reasons to travel to Germany for the World Cup!
Economically the links between us are formidable. Germany is Ireland’s third largest trading partner, third largest import supplier and third largest export market. Over 160 German companies operate in Ireland as successful and highly esteemed participants in our economy, and there is an ever-growing pattern of investment from Ireland to Germany also. These things link our present and our future.
Your presence here today, Mr. President, should inspire us to recall the 9th of November 1989, the date of the fall of the Berlin wall. Against the despair of “9/11" in the United States, we set the hope of “11/9" - the inspiring proof that the peaceful, unflinching and patient resolve of human beings can prevail against even the most oppressive violence. We are proud that forty years ago last week a famous son of Irish emigrants prophetically captured the spirit of those whose faith was eventually to bring down that awful wall. John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s four words of less than perfect German “Ich bin ein Berliner” radiated a powerful message of international solidarity and of faith in the ultimate triumph of democracy and freedom.
That same transcendent spirit is evident in the peace process in Northern Ireland and in the clear way this island has committed itself irrevocably to the politics of democratic dialogue. Whatever political storms may agitate the surface, there are deeper, surer currents running in the hearts of a critical mass of this island’s citizens and they will take us inexorably towards a reconciled and peaceful Ireland. In this respect we too have had our turning point, our Wende.
Willy Brandt said memorably of German unity that “what belongs together now grows together”. It is good to know that his phrase now applies to almost our entire continent. We live in a hugely privileged moment when enlargement will bring most of the nations of Europe into a freely chosen partnership. Many ghosts of history will be laid to rest in Dublin on May 1st next year on Accession Day and then our challenge will be to ensure a Union close to its citizens, a Union whose uniform standards and harmonised arrangements do not get in the way of the individuality and diversity which is the very glory of our continent.
Germany is a big country. Ireland is small. But around the Union table we are equal sovereign nations and we know your federal structure has equipped you with a sympathetic perspective on the importance of preserving local and national individuality within overarching structures. You bring to the table direct experience of the complex and patient work needed to overcome the legacy of the iron curtain. And crucially you bring to the table the living reassuring proof that the grimmest of historic legacies can give way to a hope-filled future.
Mr. President you grew to adulthood through the most appalling and convulsive times Germany and Europe has ever known - times when hope seemed impossible and yet eventually made its miraculous appearance. Nationally and internationally you have used your crucial gifts of wisdom, experience, faith and democratic values to promote human understanding, to insist on respect for difference and to be a passionate champion of reconciliation. We salute your great achievements and we are proud to be your hosts.
It is a great honour and a great pleasure therefore for me to propose a toast to President and Mrs Rau, and the people of the Federal Republic of Germany.