REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND TUESDAY, 26TH MAY 2009
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND TUESDAY, 26TH MAY 2009
Is cúis áthais dom bheith i láthair cairde an Ciste Gael-Mheirceánach anseo.
I want to thank Michele and Howard Kessler for their very warm welcome and for opening up their home to us today. I feel immensely happy to be in the company of so many great friends of Ireland.
It means so much to be here today because the American Ireland Fund symbolises, in a unique way, the very close relationship between Ireland and America. The supporters of the Fund have a love of Ireland expressed not just in words and sentiment but in the many willing hands which help lift hope from here across the Atlantic through the work of the Fund.
In the early days, with peace in Ireland seeming, at times, unattainable and our people facing very harsh economic circumstances, the American Ireland Fund and its members had faith in a very different Ireland where peace and prosperity would win the day. We now have that peace which eluded every past generation and we cherish it because we know its heavy cost. You played a crucial role in developing that peace and you should know that what was once a very fragile plant is showing signs of great robustness and resilience even in the teeth of the remaining threats to its existence.
Yet we are still only at the beginning of Ireland’s new story for, as Ulster poet John Hewitt put it, “we build to fill the centuries’ arrears”. The site has been cleared of so many of history’s obstacles, the foundations are being laid and now the building has begun of a new Ireland of partnership and good neighbourliness, mutual respect, true equality and justice. It is also a very different Ireland economically from the poverty-stricken place of our emigrating ancestors. In that story too you had a singular role contributing to the emergence of a dynamic Irish economy that has vastly raised the quality of life for so many people. We face the financial storms which beset the world as you do right now and we will weather them as we have weathered very difficult times in other generations but this time, while we acknowledge our failings, it is important that we also acknowledge our strengths, among them a global family, second to none which has a long history of transcending adversity and winning against the odds.
Who could have imagined there would come a time that Irish companies operating here in the US would provide, as they are now doing, over 80,000 American jobs? Last St. Patrick’s Day, the Taoiseach led a trade delegation to New York that saw announcements of new business worth up to half a billion dollars over five years. That’s new business generated by small and medium-sized Irish companies, several involving more new jobs in this country. It is a tangible measure of the success of our partnership which has seen many American companies prosper in Ireland, where it is their conduit to the vast markets of the European Union.
Securing peace and prosperity for the coming generations is our goal but we also take time to remember as you do the “Forgotten Irish”, now grown old and infirm. Your care for them will be invaluable for it tells them that they are a valued part of our large web of kith and kin, of clan and community and their lives matter to us. I wish you well in that work of care which is wrapped up in the new mission statement of the Ireland Funds and the American Ireland Fund, “The Global Irish making a difference together”. Every word of that statement is important. You already have made a difference as individuals: I think of wonderful people like your Chairman, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, that remarkable friend of Ireland; of one of your founders Dan Rooney, nominated by President Obama to be the next US Ambassador to Ireland, to name but two. You already have made a difference as regional or sectoral groupings harnessing a collective energy and imagination that has helped shift Ireland from a culture of conflict to a culture of consensus.
In the world search for a cheap source of renewable energy, the Irish hold the key. It lies in our unremitting desire to be connected to one another, to look out for one another, to shorten the road with good company, good craic, a vibrant culture, a proud heritage and confidence in the humanly decent values we can bring to the world around us. It does not happen by accident but by effort. I thank each of you for making that effort and sustaining it. The early chapters of the new Ireland you have helped to create have been a rollercoaster ride but the direction and destination are better than anything we or any generation before us has ever known, even allowing for this period of economic difficulty.
Thank you for all you have done and all you intend to do to ensure we reach that destination by the shortest route. As the old Irish saying puts it - two shortens the road.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.