ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER HOSTED BY H.E. THE PRESIDENT OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for your warm and generous welcome. We are very happy to be in Greece and to be your guests tonight at this State Dinner. Exactly two years ago, Mr. President, you made the first visit by a Greek Head of State to Ireland and we retain the most pleasant memories of your visit. You will recall your visit to the neolithic site of Newgrange in County Meath, a feat of design and engineering built by one ancient European civilization, tomorrow I look forward to visiting the Acropolis to view the pinnacle of another great civilization.
Despite the considerable distance between our two countries, relations between the Greek and Irish peoples can be traced back for centuries, as is evident from Ptolmey’s Geography, which mapped the names of rivers, towns, clans and islands in Ireland, indicating that commercial links and contacts existed between Celtic and Greek societies in the classical period.
There are also cultural links between our peoples spanning the centuries. Irish writers in particular seem to be inspired by Greece and Greek mythology. The ninth century Irish scholar Johannes Scotus Eriugena travelled to Greece and gained a knowledge and understanding of Greek theology and philosophy that was unrivalled in Europe during his lifetime. Another writer travelled the other way, from Greece to Ireland and on to distant lands: Lafcadio Hearn was born in Lefkas in 1850 to Greek and Irish parents and moved to Ireland as a child. He later travelled to Japan and gained renown for his works, which described Japan and its people to a western world hungry for such knowledge. James Joyce took the mythological structure of the classic epic Greek masterpiece Homer’s Odyssey, and applied it to write Ulysses, often considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of twentieth century English-language literature. The distinguished poet Louis MacNeice a native of Belfast like my husband and I, spent 18 months living and writing in Athens from March 1950 to April 1951 where he wrote '10 Burnt Offerings', one of his most acclaimed collection of poems. Ireland’s most celebrated contemporary writer Seamus Heaney has also drawn on Greek classical sources for his work, and indeed was in Greece in 1995 when he learned that he was to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Our countries share close historical parallels also. As nations we have often struggled to maintain our identities over the centuries from the influences of outside powers. The Greek struggle for independence in the nineteenth century was viewed sympathetically in Ireland and attracted Irish men such as Richard Church, who became Commander-in-Chief of the Greek army in 1827. Church was later appointed Greek Senator. Later, in the twentieth century, Greece, like Ireland, also suffered a tragic and bloody civil war.
However the parallels were happier in the late twentieth century, when our two countries were brought together by a common desire for peace and stability in our continent, into a Union that espouses the ideals of freedom and democracy, a legacy of classical Greece, a legacy of monumental importance to our children and grandchildren.
Ireland and Greece, two ancient nations and peoples, two modern, independent democratic states. Our countries joined the European Economic Community within eight years of each other and through our common membership, cooperation and friendship between us has deepened and strengthened. We opened Embassies in each other’s capitals and developed many new strands of shared interests. Since the beginning of this year we share the same currency and not only has that served to underpin the commercial ties between us but it has become an icon of shared pride for both our peoples, drawing each of us more profoundly into our identity as Europeans. We are a privileged European generation, for our countries, like western Europe as a whole, has rarely before experienced a more sustained period of prosperity, peace, freedom, equality and stability for centuries. We are fifteen complex countries, with highly particular histories, different sizes and outlooks, our peoples speak many languages and are drawn from many faiths, but we each have a yearning for peace and stability, for progress and prosperity, for social justice and equality. History has taught us that without these things we will never know our true strength. It has taught us too the hard way that we can accomplish much more through respectful partnership than through contemptuous rivalry. The old politics of might which laid waste the first half of the twentieth century have led us to embrace with renewed zeal the ideals of democracy, citizenship and civilization propounded here in this very city in classical times. Now old rivals sit as equals around the EU table. Ireland’s own unhappy relationship with our neighbour in Great Britain has matured to a remarkable level of friendship and cooperation thanks to our membership of this great adventure in European democracy. Those healthier relationships allowed the Peace Process in Northern Ireland to break the link with a generations old culture of conflict and adopt the European model of consensus. Now we all work together to help Ireland and her children know the benefits of peace and to help Europe to fulfil her destiny as a happy home for all her children.
Central to that destiny is the issue of enlargement, an issue which is likely to consume much of your Presidency of the EU which you will assume in under six months time. We in Ireland look forward to working and cooperating closely with the Greek Presidency in these crucial months.
The EU faces its most substantial enlargement ever in the coming two years. Ten candidates may become member states during the Irish Presidency in 2004, extending the borders of the EU to the southern Mediterranean and to the east and emphatically erasing the unnatural division that has marked our continent since the end of World War II. The new opportunities that widening of the Union’s embrace will bring to all of us are little short of phenomenal. We in Ireland have seen our own country transform beyond our hopes and imaginations thanks to membership of the Union. The vast majority of Irish people are strongly supportive of enlargement precisely because we would want others to have those same chances which we were given and which we used well.
There are two aspects of Enlargement which I would like to dwell on for a moment. Ireland warmly welcomed the Conclusions of the Helsinki European Council in December 1999 on the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. We have followed with great sympathy the efforts of the United Nations to achieve agreement on a settlement on the island. We support the current talks held in the presence of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative. As a member of the UN Security Council at the present time, we have worked to help these efforts. Our concern and our commitment to Cyprus is long standing and I would like to take this opportunity to recall the pride of the people of Ireland at the contribution of Irish soldiers and police serving with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus since the 1960's.
The Greek government has made huge efforts to improve bilateral relations with its important neighbour, Turkey. We applaud and encourage those efforts, knowing that they contribute not only to better relations between the two countries but help to facilitate the resolution of complex issues between Turkey and the EU and in the search for a resolution to the problems of Cyprus.
A very important aspect of co-operation between states is, of course, economic co-operation. Well-oiled wheels of commerce can make for partnerships, business relationships and street-level co-operation in a way that even the best political relationships cannot reach. They make for jobs and shared prosperity. They give our people more choices in their lives, more control over their own futures.
In this context, I hope that the visit which you paid to Ireland and my own visit - in the course of which I will host a breakfast for representatives of the Greek business community - will provide an impetus for stronger economic links between our two countries. I do not pretend that we will compete with you in the produce of your wonderful climate - for which Greece is justly famous. However, innovations in technology have radically altered the way in which the world now does business. Ireland, having missed the first industrial revolution, did not miss the new age of technology and has become an acknowledged leader particularly in the field of software development. Inward investment has been key to the success of the so-called Celtic Tiger and it in turn has boosted Irish investment abroad, making Ireland now a significant player in terms of outward investment. Our two countries at opposite ends of the European Union have much to reveal to each other about ourselves and much to learn about each other. Our respective rich cultures, our love of music and dance, our fascination with literature and politics, our common Christian heritage, these things give our peoples a natural empathy and an ease in establishing the kind of friendships on which good business networks also rest easily. In fact our Irish Hellenic Society which this year celebrated forty years in existence was founded by an Irishman who met Greek workers when along with so many others he took the emigrant boat to London. On returning to Dublin his respect for those fine people he met and his natural curiosity about their identity, language and culture led to the founding of an organisation which is one of the oldest bi-cultural societies in Ireland. And of course my husband has done his own small bit for Irish-Greek relationships when many years ago he worked in the tourist sector bringing Irish people to Corfu, Athens, Rhodes and Crete. Today many thousands of Irish holiday here each year and we are working to increase traffic in the other direction too!!
Preparations are currently feverishly under way in both our countries for the Olympic Games. We wish Athens every success as host of the 2004 Olympics. We look forward to welcoming Greek athletes for the Special World Olympic Games to be held in Ireland in June 2003, the first time they will have been held outside the United States. Indeed, last month I had the pleasure of welcoming a large Greek contingent of special athletes to our National Special Olympic Games.
Mr. President, there is a future ahead for all of us in which the peoples of Europe will know a level of peace, partnership and prosperity which even we today can only begin to imagine. Every friendship made today, every new connection established is another stepping stone towards the realisation of Europe’s fullest potential. In our talks today we were able to deepen our mutual understanding of some of the issues we each must deal with effectively in order to complete the dream of the Union’s founders. I look forward to continuing these discussions tomorrow with the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Greek political parties. I am deeply honoured by the attendance at this dinner of leading representatives of Greek political and social life. May our two peoples long grow in friendship and in partnership; may our children know only peace and prosperity.
May I ask you to join me in a toast to the President and people of Greece.