REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE IRISH CULTURAL CENTRE, PHOENIX SUNDAY, 14TH DECEMBER 2008
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE IRISH CULTURAL CENTRE, PHOENIX SUNDAY, 14TH DECEMBER 2008
Dia dhíbh a chairde Gael ‘s a chairde d’Éireann.
Martin and I are so grateful to you for this wonderful welcome. I would like to thank especially the members of the Executive Committee of the Centre and to Patricia Prior, for hosting us so well today, and Mayor Gordon for welcoming us to this great city.
It is a great privilege to be here among friends, made more special by the chance to acknowledge an enormously exciting and ambitious new chapter of the work of the Centre. I believe the new library will be a tremendous addition to the resources available to the community here and I applaud you for that great combination of vision and hard work, which is the only way good things are made to happen.
I see written, as part of the mural in this hall, a quote from St Colmcille, “I have loved the land of Ireland almost beyond speech”. I wonder if that isn’t a gentle hint to visitors to keep their remarks to the point.
Well, the point of why we’re here today is that bond, felt between people across the world who share an Irish heritage and an Irish identity, is still the world’s greatest source of renewable energy, for it draws us together across time and distance to claim one another as kith and kin and as clan to one another.
I am told that half a million people in Phoenix claim Irish or Scots-Irish ancestry, part of a wider community of over 30 million in America as a whole, and 70 million worldwide. It is a great family to belong to and we are proud to count among our global family your own Senator John McCain. Senator McCain has been a staunch and faithful friend of Ireland over many years and he is also a great supporter of this Centre. His winning of the Republican nomination for the Presidency is testament to his formidable qualities and achievements and it would be hard indeed to ever forget the sheer nobility of his words when he conceded victory to President-elect Obama. I’m sure you will join with me in wishing John every fulfilment in his future endeavours which we know will include an ongoing friendship with the land of his ancestors.
I would also like to salute this morning the role played by successive generations of Irish emigrants in Phoenix in preserving and promoting Irish culture, Irish heritage and Irish values. Without the support and dedication of people, people such as you, this Centre, this day would not have been possible. Although many of your forebears came from Ireland generations ago, the strong imprint of that Irish DNA is remarkable - so remarkable that it really is one of the world’s best sources of renewable energy. It is summarised in the joy in life, the tenacity, fidelity, the music, the dance, the values and the vision which so many Irish immigrants and their descendants wove deeply into the tapestry of American life.
They built good families, great communities, strengthened civic life, politics, culture, the economy, education, health care, the police, fire and defence services. They showcased their pride in America in so many ways and still they kept a place in their hearts for Ireland. Their hard-earned cents and dollars were sent back year after year to a desperately poor and troubled land. Among their greatest legacies is this pervasive and enduring connectedness that keeps us part of the great Irish global family. Today, Ireland’s peace and prosperity owes a lot to their care, their deep sense of responsibility and the freshness of those connections in each generation.
Those connections were a very important part of how we expanded our economy in the last twenty years, bringing widespread prosperity and opportunity to Ireland for the first time in her history. With the help of US investors, we grew a new indigenous, entrepreneurial culture and today Irish companies investing in America create almost as many jobs here as American companies do in Ireland. We have a great two-way partnership, one based on mutual trust and compatibility, tested and honed over centuries.
It is a partnership that showed its power a thousand-fold in helping build the momentum for peace on the island of Ireland. Last year, we saw the formation of inclusive power-sharing institutions headed by Dr Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. It was a breathtaking step out of the paralysing undertow of history but it happened not just thanks to all the peacemakers at home in Ireland but thanks to the considerable help from our friends here in the United States. This country shares our pride in bringing peace to Ireland at last. It also shares the credit.
This new chapter in Irish life – an historic peace and a generation of prosperity and innovation - creates a new landscape, a confluence of new energies freed up to engage more comprehensively and imaginatively with our global family. With so many new technologies, the ease of communication and travel, we have the means to build connections as never before. The will is not in doubt - it comes with our Irish DNA. It is what keeps us clan and family to one another through all of life’s vagaries. This Centre, and its new library, will be a hub for those connections, and a home for the new networks of friendship and shared interests that will keep Ireland and Arizona close, even across the miles.
I wish you every possible success with it. Go n-éirí go geal libh ‘s go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.