REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE CYPRIOT COMMUNITY IN IRELAND
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE CYPRIOT COMMUNITY IN IRELAND HOSTED BY HE ANDREAS KAKOURIS
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good Afternoon,
Martin and I are very grateful to Ambassador Kakouris and his wife Kareen for creating this opportunity to meet so many members of Ireland’s Cypriot community. We are grateful to all of you for coming to this event which is, for me, an important opportunity to say welcome and thank you for bringing your talents, skills, interests and perspectives to Ireland.
You are part of a process through which Ireland has been very rapidly transformed into a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. You are also a crucial part of the process of European integration, and shared European citizenship, for freedom of movement is one of the foundation stones of the European Union. It is important to us that the lived experience, the human dimension, of that process should be as painless as possible; that the men, women and children who come here should find it relatively easy to settle and to quickly become a welcome part of the wider community. We know that language and cultural differences pose challenges, and that the emigrant heart is always torn between birthplace and adopted homeland, so the emigrant individual or family faces particular difficulties. The Cypriots, like the Irish, have a lot of experience of emigration to draw on, and though the Cypriot community here is relatively small in numbers it plays its own distinctive role in the rich mosaic of contemporary Irish society. There are similarities which make life somewhat easier. Ireland and Cyprus are both small island nations, rich in history, at the geographic edges of Europe. I have heard it said that in some ways we are the lighthouses of Europe. We don’t let our geographically peripheral position consign us to the margins of European or international discourse. We both have the baleful experience of partition, of unhappy relations with larger neighbours and history has taught us sad lessons about the vulnerability of small island nations. We both chose to become part of the greatest adventure in democratic partnership ever undertaken in world history – the European Union – for in it we see the chance for our distinctive identities to blossom and achieve their potential within a wide European family of co-equal nations. As divided islands we each possess a demonstrable and sustained willingness to overcome the challenges this poses through peaceful means and our shared membership of the European Union has been of great significance in the pursuit of a just peace.
President Papadopoulos has visited Ireland officially twice in the past couple of years, first for the Day of Welcomes in Dublin on the 1st of May, 2004, and then last November when he invited me to make a State visit to Cyprus. I am really looking forward to that visit in October this year though I also enjoyed a brief Easter Holiday in Polis and that certainly whetted my appetite for a further visit to your beautiful island. Mind you, with 80,000 Irish visitors to Cyprus in 2005, an Irish President has no difficulty feeling completely at home!
An incredible 13,000 Irish went to Cyprus for a certain soccer match last October, and a similar friendly invasion is foreseen for the same fixture on 7 October next, for fate has decreed that we are drawn against each other once again – but no one is complaining about that!
Of course, one of the deepest and most important connections between our two islands is through the, now forty-year, service of the Defence Forces and the Garda Síochána with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus – UNFICYP. The fact that so many Irish men and women served in Cyprus over the years has created a lasting connection between our two countries and peoples. It was beautifully showcased when last March, the Foreign Minister of Cyprus, Mr George Iacovou, travelled to Dublin to present Lieutenant General Gerry O'Sullivan with the Grand Commander of Order of Merit of the Republic of Cyprus. While serving with the UN forces he became one of the central figures in the humanitarian crisis that followed the August 1974 invasion by Turkish forces. His work in the weeks and months that followed earned him the gratitude of thousands of Cypriots. This award was not only a well-deserved personal honour for Gerry O’Sullivan. In many ways it was a tribute to all the Irish soldiers and policemen who have served in Cyprus. We are immensely proud of their work around the world in the cause of peace and greatly appreciate the honour bestowed by Foreign Minister Iacovou.
The Garda Síochána has also played its part in helping the people of Cyprus and continues to do so today. I am looking forward to seeing their work first hand in October.
To those of you who have made their homes here, whether in recent years or over many decades, I wish you and your families every success and happiness now and in the future. You are the bridges that link Ireland and Cyprus and I have no doubt the relationship between Ireland and Cyprus will continue to thrive as we work with each other, and for each other, as citizens of Ireland, Cyprus and Europe.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.
Thank you all.