REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND (AIF) DINNER NEW YORK
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND (AIF) DINNER NEW YORK THURSDAY, 6TH MAY, 1999
A chairde,
Tá lúcháir mhór orm bheith libh tráthnóna ag an tionól seo de Ghaeil agus de chairde na hÉireann. Míle buíochas libh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
I deeply appreciate the honour you extend to me tonight and the opportunity it gives me to recognise the extraordinary contribution made by the American Ireland Fund, and all of you who support its activities, to the objectives of peace, reconciliation and economic progress throughout the island of Ireland.
A special tribute is due to your current President, Loretta Brennan Glucksman. Loretta, and her husband Lew, have contributed enormously over the years to building and developing the American Ireland Fund. Indeed, the Fund is but one of their many imaginative and creative contributions to Irish causes.
Kip Condron has long been associated with the Fund, originally in Boston and now in New York. The remarkable success of this evening’s event testifies also to his stature and efforts as dinner chair and the work of the dinner committee and organisers.
The Ireland Fund today is a monument to the vision of its founding fathers, notably your Chairman Tony O’Reilly and Dan Rooney. From small beginnings a global network mobilising people of Irish heritage and friends of Ireland everywhere has been forged. Your activities provide a practical and positive focus for their goodwill and desire to support peaceful and constructive change. More than that you have awakened a deep, fresh pride in Ireland, its culture, its future, its people.
Building bridges and pointing the way to reconciliation on the island of Ireland is a theme of my Presidency. The Ireland Funds have long been engaged in programmes aiming to break down distrust and build confidence between the two communities in the North of Ireland. A legacy of communal hatred, opposing ambitions, mistrust, ignorance and fear has outcropped in violence in every generation this century. None worse than in my own. But for a new generation there is now a real and realisable future based on respect and consensus. Your work has helped to create at grass-roots level the conditions for the political progress we have been able to make. It has softened hearts, helped enemies to become partners – created space for new ideas to take root. Your continued support and engagement will be vital as we strive to complete the task of implementing the Good Friday Agreement in all its aspects and laying the foundations for a society based on peace, justice, equality and partnership.
For this is a process. There is a beginning – we've made the start. There is a middle – we are in it. There will be an end – there will be a new peaceful culture of consensus – and it is in the making, with your patient help and fidelity to the work we are engaged in.
In a little over a year we have made considerable headway towards realising the potential of the Agreement. As President I am very conscious of the real hope for the future which many people are beginning to feel for the first time – hope that the future has more to offer than the past, hope that this will be the last generation in Ireland to experience political conflict. I see people from both sides of the community beginning to reach out to each other across the divide which has kept them apart for so long. There is tangible evidence that people are taking personal responsibility for shaping a new future, building a new language, demolishing the space in which the toxin of hatred has operated for so long.
But you will also be aware that, alongside the undeniable progress which has been made, we have also experienced some difficulties and setbacks. This was perhaps inevitable. The Agreement is a radical document. It took real courage and a willingness to compromise to bring it about and its full implementation will draw heavily on those same resources. We do not yet have consensus between the parties on how certain aspects of the Agreement are to be implemented – and the differences between them are real and serious. But everybody – the two Governments and the parties – are working intensively together to build the trust and confidence necessary so that all can move forward together. Clearly, as President, it is my earnest hope and prayer that they will succeed.
It will be a slow and difficult task to overcome decades of suspicion and distrust, but the great project of reconciliation is, in my view, well underway. I would like to pay a particular tribute to the greater Irish family throughout the world, and particularly here in the United States, who have done so much to help to bring peace and prosperity to Ireland.
For generations we witnessed the loss of the brightest and best of our people to emigration. But it was, in many ways, only a temporary loss. For you and your forebears found in America and in the other lands that Irish people settled in, a place where the full genius of the Irish could flourish. You contributed enormously to the political, economic, social and cultural development of your new homes, demonstrating an outstanding level of initiative, energy and commitment.
Most of all, you did not forget the land that you or your ancestors had left behind. You have contributed enormously to the slow process of forging a peaceful and prosperous Ireland. A land that is growing in self-confidence and that is determined to find peace at last. Today’s Ireland has grown in stature around the world because of the dynamism of its culture, its economy, its pride in the global Irish family and deep rooted belief in its young population and their thirst for peace. I hope that you know how deeply we appreciate all you have done that we might enjoy this historic opportunity.
Throughout the difficult journey that led to the Agreement on Good Friday and since, our friends in America have been with us step by step. President Clinton and Senator George Mitchell will rightly be the people remembered by history as having made a major contribution to the peace process – a contribution for which Ireland will always be grateful. But it is important to remember that many, many people throughout Irish America also gave generously of their help and support when it was needed. I know that in difficult times ahead, we will draw great comfort from knowing that those same people will continue to be there for Ireland.
Mo bhuíochas libh arís as bhur gcuidiú agus bhur dtacaíocht a bhíonn i gcónaí fial agus flaithiúil. Cabhraíonn sé go mór agus muid i mbun oibre ar son na síochána agus na cothromaíochta in Éirinn. Is mór linne, sa bhaile, an tacaíocht seo agus an buan-chairdeas atá ann idir tír na hÉireann agus na Stáit Aontaithe, agus is mór linn go speisialta an gaol ar leith atá againn libhse, muintir Chiste Mheiriceá d’Éirinn.