REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER, ROYAL PALACE TUESDAY 14TH OCTOBER 2008
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER, ROYAL PALACE TUESDAY 14TH OCTOBER 2008
Your Majesties, Ministers, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Martin og jeg er veldig glade for aa vaere her sammen med vare norske venner.
I thank Your Majesties, for the wonderful welcome Martin and I have received in Oslo today. We have been welcomed as dear friends and as was evident from your Majesties visit to Ireland two years ago the bonds of ancient kinship between Ireland and Norway are formidable.
A thousand years ago an Irish monk was writing that he did not fear the stormy nights because “the fierce warriors of Norway….only travel the quiet seas”. This could explain the lifelong love affair between Ireland and bad weather. The obsession with Viking behaviour is also evident in the 9th century rules on keeping the Sabbath holy for the “Cáin Domhnaig” or Sunday Regulation, gives ‘fleeing from Vikings’ as one of the few accepted reasons for transgression of the Sabbath Day. Your Majesties might note that our delegation took the precaution of arriving on a Monday and leaving before Sunday.
As Your Majesties know, I live in the Phoenix Park in the heart of Dublin. One of my less well known neighbours is a lady buried in a Viking grave with grave goods indicating that she came from Norway. Her people founded the town of Dubhlinn and considered the Phoenix Park to be a suitable resting place for Chieftains and their spouses! The Irish have seen no reason to change things since, with this difference that our Chieftains, now called Presidents, live and work there instead of being buried there.
The sea is an inescapable shaper of the narratives of both Norway and Ireland, a highway between us in the past for warfare, trade, intermarriage and the exchange of cultures. We have both been shaped by our mountains and the lands we cherish dearly. We have both been profoundly deepened by struggles to maintain our identity in the face of adversity: in particular emigration and economic hardship. Thankfully more recently our peoples have known prosperity and vastly improved quality of life as our small and far flung countries proved their mettle in the global marketplace.
We are both blessed in our people, for they have developed and sustained strong civic societies, with vibrant community life. In recent years, we have both become the adopted homelands of significant numbers of migrants from other lands and cultures. They are making an important contribution to our respective economies as well as deepening and broadening our civic and cultural lives.
We also share a natural empathy for others in adversity, whether those are mired in poverty or conflict. Norway’s commitment in this regard is legendary and held in the highest regard right around the globe including in Ireland and a particularly respected aspect of your work is the humanitarian fund established by the Crown Prince and Princess. Both our nations have distinguished records as United Nations peacekeepers and how many times has the name of Oslo featured in international brokering of peace accords in places of conflict? Twice the Norwegian Nobel Institute conferred the Nobel Peace Prize on peacemakers in Ireland, showcasing your support for peace and giving vital encouragement as well as recognition to peacemakers whose work is now at last coming to fruition on our island. We know that your support and encouragement, as well as the benefit of your international experience in mediation played an important role in our long journey to peace. We hope the experience and wisdom we gained on that journey will allow us to help others who yearn for peace. In planning how best to share our experiences we in Ireland have Norway as an exemplar.
In the field of energy Norway is also an outstanding role-model. Your country has been blessed with important natural resources, not least among them oil and gas. They represent an important element of your exports to Ireland. You have had the vision to realise the finite nature of these resources and to commit to investment in renewable energy technologies, an area in which you will find Ireland a willing collaborator. Our wind and water resources position both of us well to be world leaders in these fields.
Energy is not the only commodity traded between us. As you might expect for two countries that have been trading for the best part of one thousand years business between us is wide-ranging and there is a strong potential for further development as I will no doubt hear at tomorrow’s breakfast meeting with Norwegian and Irish businessmen and women.
A long time ago those curious, adventurous seafarers, the Vikings, drew Ireland and Norway strongly into each others orbit. In contemporary times reciprocal State visits have enhanced our modern relationship and underpinned the human bonds built quietly and robustly by Norwegians in Ireland and the Irish community in Norway. Some are here this evening and it is in and through their lived lives, their daily ambassadorship for the best of Ireland and the best of Norway, that our cultures, characters, heritage and identities are opened up to one another, ensuring that we remain friends rather than strangers to one another.
In six years time Ireland will commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf, when Irish High King Brian Boru finally defeated the Vikings. Yet a Millennium later I live in the great city they founded. Visitors to our capital city take Viking tours and visit Viking exhibitions for they surely left their mark and it has had a very long shelf life. Let us hope that we, their successors, also leave a lasting mark for good, on our homelands and on our world: a mark of peace, prosperity, co-operation and friendship.
I would like you all to join with me now in a toast to Their Majesties, King Harald and Queen Sonja and to friendship between the peoples of Ireland and Norway.
Skål!