REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF HER EXCELLENCY TARJA HALONEN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF HER EXCELLENCY TARJA HALONEN, PRESIDENT OF FINLAND
Your Excellency President Halonen, Dr Arajärvi,
Members of the Finnish delegation, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure to wish you a very warm Céad Míle Fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes, or, as you say in Finland, Tervetuloa!
Madam President,
Your State Visit to Ireland is an occasion to celebrate a relationship of particular warmth and importance and to reciprocate the lovely welcome we received from you and the people of Finland when we made a memorable State Visit to your country a few years ago.
There we discovered a strong and spontaneous affinity between the Irish and the Finns, an affinity which we recall once again tonight, as we sympathise with the bereaved, the injured, and the wider community of Tuusula, following last Wednesday’s tragic events.
Our intrinsic compatibility has been long familiar to the members of our respective defence forces who for half a century have served side-by-side in peace-keeping operations around the world. Today of course our partnership in the European Union represents a powerful strand in Irish-Finnish relations, as does our shared commitment to the United Nations as a cornerstone of foreign policy.
But underlying the formal structures through which we assert and develop our shared value system and our shared future there are other elements at work which make it easy for us to feel comfortable and compatible in each others company.
Both in Finland and in Ireland, our love of the home place has been maintained in the face of famine and exile. Runeberg’s words for your national anthem put it like this: “Our land is poor, a foreigner goes proudly past us, yet we love this land…”. In his poem about Finland, an Irish poet, the late Michael Hartnett, puts the following lines into the mouth of Sibelius:
“They say my music weeps for the days
when my people ate the bark from the trees
because all crops had failed…”
In Ireland, such sentiments are understood. They are a deep and abiding part of our national experience.
During an age of empires, in both Ireland and Finland the true stories and truest hopes of our peoples survived in the face of adversity, above all in poetry and music. At a crucial stage in Ireland’s movement towards political emancipation, Tom Moore sang of the “harp that once through Tara’s halls” - the same harp that today is the official emblem of Ireland.
As the same time, another musical instrument, the kantele, equally resonant in the hearts of a people, was being sculpted in relief in the ceremonial hall of Finland’s main university. Finland and Ireland were leading examples of the emancipation of peoples. We insisted that the powerful forces at work in the world should be subject to moral and legal principles far beyond might is right. We insisted on respect for our distinctive culture and traditions and for our right to self-determination.
Out of our experiences we have both become champions of peace and freedom based on justice, equality and human rights. Indeed Finland is the only non-English speaking country to have had a very close involvement in the Northern Ireland Peace process through the respective mandates of your predecessor President Martti Ahtisaari, Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and Brigadier General Tauno Nieminen. I take this opportunity to thank you and the Finnish people for your support which has helped to radically alter the political landscape on this island.
Madam President, your programme includes a visit to the site of the Battle of the Boyne a place that resonates with the complex legacies of Irish history. Just a few months ago its image changed considerably when the Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern, and Northern Ireland’s First Minister Ian Paisley exchanged gifts there - a remarkable sign of better times to come.
One of the very positive experiences shared by Ireland and Finland is our relatively recent economic progress. Both of us are fulfilling the dreams of past patriots: that the patience and endurance of centuries would finally bear fruit in widespread prosperity. Prosperity and peace don’t make for perfection though they make for a considerably better world than their absence does. We know we have work to do to maintain and enhance our quality of life, to deal with the threats from climate change and pressure on natural resources, to spread respect for human rights throughout our world, to end the grinding poverty of so many. We know that in those challenges and many more we can rely on one another and we salute the most distinguished contribution you have made Madam President as co-Chair of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation.
Madam President, your visit provides us an opportunity to reflect on the ties between us and to promote the opportunities for developing those ties. Tomorrow you are visiting the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, a European body based in Ireland under a Finnish Director, Mr Jorma Karppinen. Four airlines now have direct connections between Finland and Ireland and valuable exchanges between Ireland and Finland are already taking place at cultural, business and local government levels.
It is important that Ireland and Finland, who share so many values in their global outlook, should work towards their achievement through our membership of the European Union where we each have an important role to play in steering key European policies in positive directions, to improve the lives of our citizens and contribute to the wellbeing of the global community. The beauty of the European project is that countries like ours have a real impact in policy areas, well beyond our size and population.
In the ninteenth century, when scholars wore out good boot leather travelling around small villages to collect Finland’s oral tradition, one of the beautiful anonymous poems they collected runs like this:
“Of what use are we singers
what good we cuckoo-callers
if no fire spurts from our mouths…”
There is fire and passion in the souls of the Irish and the Finns. We are both of use and value in our world as witnesses to the possibility of transcending even the most cruel of histories and as champions of moral stewardship of our own countries and our shared planet.
I hope that this visit will draw Ireland and Finland ever closer and that it will provide many happy memories.
Madam President, distinguished guests,
I now invite you to stand and join me in a toast
to the health and happiness of President Halonen and Dr Arajärvi
to peace and prosperity for the people of Finland
and to continued friendship and partnership between the peoples of Ireland and Finland
Terveydeksenne!