REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF HIS EXCELLENCY TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF HIS EXCELLENCY TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES, PRESIDENT OF REP. OF ESTONIA
Your Excellency President Ilves, Mrs Ilves
Members of the Estonian delegation, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to wish you a warm Céad Míle Fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes – or as you say in Estonia, Tere Tulemast!
Mr President,
Your State Visit to Ireland is an occasion to celebrate the survival and success of two small proud nations situated on opposite flanks of the European Union. During my State Visit to Estonia in 2001, I was struck by the obvious affinity between the peoples of our two countries that so easily spanned the distance between us. Similar historical experiences of foreign rule, of economic hardship and a strong attachment to our land have all contributed but there is more.
In both our countries, national cultures played a major role in keeping alive not simply our sense of identity but our yearning for freedom and our determination to triumph over adversity. The Estonian National Awakening coincided with our own Gaelic Revival and each contributed to the achievement of independence, in 1920 in Estonia and a year later in Ireland.
In the entire world, just over one million ethnic Estonians have sustained Estonian as your spoken language. It has survived German, Danish, Swedish and Russian rule. Your language has helped to define you as a people; a unique repository of your own story, its survival is a badge of honour.
Choral music, too, has played a significant role in your history. Cultural societies, choirs and orchestras were established in parishes all over Estonia. Your first choral festival in 1869 founded a tradition which played a major role in the restoration of your independence and gave its name to your “Singing Revolution”. Today, that choral tradition continues, and two months ago, we were privileged to host in Dublin the world premiere of a choral composition by Arvo Part.
In Ireland, the preservation of our traditional culture continues to play a significant role in our society. Aside from our language, there are two elements of our traditional culture which have gone from strength to strength - Irish music and Gaelic Games. The harp, for centuries the emblem of Ireland, reflects the importance of our musical heritage. Our music and dance have spread beyond our shores to Irish communities throughout the world and, from them, into other countries’ musical traditions.
Less well known outside Ireland, perhaps, is the popularity of our Gaelic Games - hurling, camogie and Gaelic football. As with your choral societies, there is hardly a parish in Ireland without a Gaelic club and, over the decades, they have established a nationwide community network of sports and social facilities.
For many years it was history rather than geography that conspired to keep Ireland and Estonia at arm’s length from one another as your country was subjected first to Nazi and subsequently to Soviet occupation, the latter lasting until 1991. The deportation of tens of thousands of Estonians to Siberia was a crime of epic proportion which left hardly a single ethnic Estonian family untouched by deep tragedy. But our empathy with your suffering never waned. Ireland never recognised the Soviet annexation and, when you regained your independence, we delighted in co-sponsoring your membership application to the United Nations and, of course, we enthusiastically supported your accession to the European Union in May 2004, an event formalised in this very house.
Today our peoples are partners in the Union, our futures are tightly interwoven and our young people share each other’s lives in ways that would have seemed very unlikely just a generation ago. The Union has given our continent the immeasurable gift of peace and stability. It has made good neighbours and friends of nations and states that were estranged and it has given us all a common market in which to build prosperity and a common democratic value system that is a vital centre of gravity in our troubled world. It is still a relatively young Union and we have much to look forward to as we build its future, between all of us and for all of us.
Mr President, already your nation’s story is extraordinary. The tough groundwork of the 1990s has set the scene for an open and dynamic economy which has more than halved your unemployment rate. Your national debt is the lowest in the Union. The scale and speed of your economic transformation have been dramatic and say much about the determination and creativity of your people. As you said in your February National Day Address, this is “a miraculous time”.
In Ireland we understand that sentiment for, like Estonia, through dark days we believed ourselves capable of creating days of hope and achievement like this which we, like you, now enjoy for the first time in our history. We know we owe it to those whose shoulders we stand on, to use these times well to build a future of which we can be proud.
I would like to conclude with the final words of your national epic poem, Kalevipoeg
“Then the son of Kalev will come home
To bring his children happiness
And build Estonia’s life anew”.
Mr President, in this year, the ninetieth anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, Kalev’s son has truly returned home and Estonia is indeed building her life anew. The people of Ireland wish you well.
I now invite you, distinguished guests, to stand and join me in a toast
to the health and happiness of President and Mrs Ilves,
to peace and prosperity for the people of Estonia,
and to continued friendship between the peoples of Ireland and Estonia.