REMARKS AT THE CONCERT AND RECEPTION HOSTED BY H.E. THE PRESIDENT OF THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE CONCERT AND RECEPTION HOSTED BY H.E. THE PRESIDENT OF THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC
- Is mór liom an chaoi seo buíochas a ghabháil arís lena shoilse Uachtarán Phoblacht na Portaingéile agus Bean Jorge Sampaio.
- I am very grateful for your kind and generous remarks, and for this splendid evening which has brought together so many friends of Portugal.
- It has been for us a particular pleasure to have you among us, to discuss our common interest and to show you something of today’s Ireland.
- Over the past two days, and tomorrow when you will visit a youth project in Drogheda supported by the International Fund for Ireland, you and your delegation will have had the opportunity to see some of the exciting new ventures and initiatives which are altering the face of modern Ireland.
- Both of our countries have undergone great changes in the last quarter century of the millennium. I think we can truly say that the next twenty-five years of the new millennium and beyond offer us an equally exhilarating prospect.
- I don’t believe, however, that either of us would wish to measure these changes merely in terms of statistics, however impressive these may be. Portugal and Ireland are both countries with a rich and varied history. Your own experience, Mr. President, your long record in defence of human rights and the rule of law have helped to shape present-day Portugal. Let us hold firmly to these values and to the best of our traditions while building and adapting our societies to meet the great challenges of our common partnership in Europe.
- A Portuguese writer remarked some years ago that the impact of the Lusiadas of Camões on his sixteenth century audience must have been a little like that of Joyce’s Ulysses on his readers four centuries later. We are scarcely two weeks away from Bloomsday. I will not compare your journeyings through Dublin these past two days with those of Leopold Bloom. But I am sure that you have perceived and understood much of what we are achieving here and what we aspire to in the years ahead.
- Above all, I hope that you will take away with you the image of the real warmth and friendship that we feel for the Portuguese people.
- Again I thank you most warmly for this marvellous evening.
- Go raibh míle maith agaibh arís. Tá súil agam go mbainfidh sibh taitneamh agus tairbhe as an chuid eile den chuairt seo.