remarks by president mcaleese at the State Dinner in Honour of the Governor General of Australia
remarks by president mcaleese at the State Dinner in Honour of the Governor General of Australia, Sir William Deane
Cuireann sé áthas orm fáilte a chur romhaibh anseo tráthnóna.Fearaim céad míle fáilte roimh ár gcuairteoirí ón Astráil, agus go háirithe roimh An Ridire William Deane agus An Bhantiarna Deane, atá i ndiadh leath an domhain a thaisteal le bheith anseo inár dteannta.
It is a great joy for Martin and myself to extend a warm Irish welcome to the Governor General of Australia, Sir William Deane, to Lady Deane and to the visiting Australian Delegation. That sense of joy is all the more profound because, Sir William, of the great pride we in Ireland have for your outstanding personal achievements, the high office which you hold and, in a special way, because you return to us from a country where some 40% of the population owes at least a part of their ancestry, as you do yourself, to Irish people who have journeyed to the shores of Australia over the past two hundred years. You are truly welcome home.
Yours is a land rich in great natural resources, a land filled with remarkably beautiful and contrasting scenery as well as with great and bustling cities. In those cities, towns and villages across Australia you have constructed an impressive multicultural society, while retaining a sense of community and solidarity. It is a society which has not lost its appetite for adventure as it celebrates its diversity and deepens its appreciation - which you have done so much to foster - of the genius and artistic creativity of the original inhabitants of the Great South Land.
But the story of Australia is not the story of numbers or of statistics or of dates, it is the story of women and men with their hopes and their dreams, with their strengths and their weaknesses, who cared for one another and for their families and who built their lives together in the ancient territory which was to them the new world to the South, often with great courage and remarkable endurance. They were people of special character and singular determination. Among them was a couple, Patrick and Ellen Deane, who arrived at Port Phillip on 14 March 1851. Their fourth child was born in Ireland before they sailed for Australia - his name was also Patrick and he was your grandfather. I know how important your Irish heritage is to both your wife and yourself. On Saturday you will take a step back into history when you visit the town land in Tipperary from where almost 150 years ago your own ancestors set out to make that long journey across the sea.
From the earliest days the stories of the Deane family and the stories of others like them, were ones of courage and adventure. As they spread across urban and rural Australia, the values they cherished, the responsibility they took for each other, the ambitions they set out to achieve - all contributed to the society they strove to establish, to the nation they helped to fashion. Indeed, out of all of the trials and challenges of those early days, a great nation has been forged, a respected member of the international family, a Federation of States, the centenary of which all Australians can celebrate in 2001.
The ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra in February 1996 at which you were sworn in as Governor General, was itself a reminder of the remarkable contribution of generations of Irish women and men to the making of modern Australia. With you on that day were many people of Irish ancestry, including Mr John Howard, the then Leader of the Federal Opposition – now of course your Prime Minister - who owes part of his ancestry to Irish emigrants from Counties Down and Westmeath. It was an occasion which underlined the fact that, at the highest political level in the life of your country, ours is a very special relationship of kinship and friendship. It also illustrated the fact that the Irish contribution is so interwoven into the mainstream of multicultural Australia that it is indeed impossible to separately quantify the extent of its impact in any meaningful way.
In the course of my State Visit last September, which was as you know the first State Visit of my Presidency, I had the opportunity to appreciate something of the richness and vitality of our contemporary relationship. Although we live on two islands of very different magnitudes, and in very different parts of the world, the strength and enduring character of our relationship has not been diminished by either time or distance. Across Australia, in Governments and in Parliaments, in universities and in business associations, I found such enormous goodwill, genuine interest and deep understanding of Ireland and its people.
I found also a deep concern to see progress in the Northern Ireland peace process and a strong will to encourage all the parties to the Good Friday Agreement to overcome the harsh legacy of history and to ensure that the future will be different - that it will be a future based on dialogue and discussion, cherishing the principles of consent and inclusiveness, and ensuring a prosperous and peaceful way of life for all of us on this island.
Tonight I thank you for Australia’s support - for the work of Sir Ninian Stephen, for the valued contribution to the International Fund, for those who work with the Ireland Fund, and above all for your concern and constant interest.
I witnessed also an enthusiasm to celebrate the impressive achievements of the Irish economy and a genuine desire in the wide-ranging Irish business networks, now established in almost every state capital, to deepen and to expand the Irish Australian economic relationship. The many Irish companies which have a presence in Australia and the Australian firms operating in Ireland are testimony to the success of our efforts to build a prosperous future in both our regions of the world.
I also found a huge enthusiasm for, as well as a widespread recognition of, Ireland’s cultural renaissance - our music and songs, both traditional and modern, our literature and drama, our poetry and cinema - are all welcomed as signs of a country that can confidently share a rich heritage and celebrate our own genius as a people. Indeed, in the course of my State Visit to Australia, I was particularly aware of the fact that our impressive cultural renaissance is not limited to those of us who live on this island of Ireland. It is a renaissance which is also the achievement of thousands of dedicated and enthusiastic members of the global Irish family - people like Tom Keneally and Arthur Boyd, (whom I was saddened to hear has recently died); societies like the Queensland Irish Association and the Celtic Clubs in Melbourne and Perth, the GAA in States like Victoria and New South Wales and so many others who are active in the artistic and academic communities.
We owe much to those links. Indeed, this evening I would like to pay a special tribute to a wonderful couple I met in Melbourne, Gerry Higgins and his wife Peggy, whose family have recently donated three million Australian dollars to establish a Chair in Irish Studies in his honour at the University of Melbourne. I was delighted to have been told that their decision followed from the Tenth Anniversary Dinner of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Melbourne where I was privileged to meet Gerry and pay a special tribute to him as one of its founding members.
Governor General and Lady Deane,
As two relatively young states committed to playing our part in the world and concerned to have it embrace our democratic ideals, we share a strong humanitarian outlook and we both cherish the objectives of peace, justice and understanding between Nations.
I took back with me to Ireland the memories of a great nation, of an open friendly and generous people, of scenery of extraordinary beauty and of a massive continent richly endowed by its creator. But above all, I took back with me a great feeling of pride in the Irish contribution to the impressive multicultural society that is contemporary Australia.
In the course of your visit to this small but legendary country of your ancestors, I hope that you will experience a similar warmth and hospitality, youthfulness, dynamism and good humour, that special way we have with one another which, I believe, are characteristics of both our societies. You already know Ireland well from your student days in Trinity College but I hope that you will return to Australia not only with renewed pride in this very changed modern Ireland but with a deep reassurance that your country and its wonderful people have a special place in our Irish hearts.
Tá súil agam go mbeidh ard-tráthnóna agaibh agus go mbainfidh sibh sult agus séan agus siamsa as an chuid eile den turas seo go hÉirinn.