REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE COMMUNITY RECEPTION
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE COMMUNITY RECEPTION HOSTED BY THE CONSUL-GENERAL ANA HOTEL, SYDNEY
Muintir na h-Eireann, Cairde na h-Éireann.
There are so many Irish here I can’t understand why St. Patrick didn’t just by-pass Ireland, come straight to Australia and send a message back for the rest of us to follow him. It is good to be back among you again and especially to be here to share the St. Patrick’s season with you. Martin and I have never forgotten the terrific welcome we received here during the first State Visit of my Presidency back in September 1998. Here we saw and felt the spirit of the Gael, transplanted in new soil, bubbling with the energy, good humour and love of life so familiar to the Irish, faithful to the values of care for family, neighbour and community, showcasing the culture of Ireland in music, dance, theatre, film, art and literature, making the stranger welcome, showing how big the Irish heart grows in Australia, big enough to love a big Pacific island and a small Atlantic island far apart geographically, but joined at the hip in history.
There is something very special about being able to celebrate St. Patrick’s feast here in Australia. Patrick came to Ireland as a stranger, a youngster, frightened, lonely, poorly educated and vulnerable, driven from his homeland by dreadful circumstance. If there is any saint who understands the emigrant’s heart, it is Patrick. The odds stacked against him were overwhelming and yet he has carried the name of Ireland across the world for fifteen hundred years, proof of the remarkable contribution one human being can make if he or she takes the risks, makes the difficult choices, rolls up the sleeves and sets out into the future in faith and hope. People like Patrick built Sydney and built Australia, among them generations of Irishmen and women who looked to him for imagination and inspiration through many a dark time. They did the sowing and we reap their harvest. We remember them with gratitude in our gathering this evening as a modern successful Australia and a modern successful Ireland stand tall among the nations of the world, lifted up on the shoulders of people of real courage.
Australia is a by word for that pithy expression, a “FAIR GO” with its profound commitment to the equality of each human being and its belief in the right of each to fulfil his or her truest and best destiny. Ireland has transcended its grim past to become the economic success story of the European Union and through the slow but inexorable blossoming of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland a new future of peaceful partnership is being secured for the island of Ireland.
Neither Australia’s nor Ireland’s success clattered together by coincidence. People made them happen just as through your work in its thousands of different manifestations the futures of both countries become strengthened through the bonds of affinity between the two countries you love so dearly. You have kept faith with Ireland through hard times, willing us on to prosper, willing us on to make peace, inspiring us by your success here to the kind of self-belief a new generation in Ireland now takes for granted. You deserve our thanks and it is good to be here to say a heartfelt thank you. Long may Ireland and Australia know the joy of the hard work, enthusiasm, genius and imagination of such good people.
I would like to say a special word of thanks to our Consul-General Anne Webster and Vice-Consul Michael Keaveney for hosting this wonderful evening which has already made the visit so memorable and heart-warming.
Would you please join me in raising your glasses to toast the generous, life-loving, spirit of the Gael, which unites all of us in the celebration of our heritage, in this special season of Saint Patrick.
Lá féile Pádraig shona díbh agus rath Dé oraibh go léir. Go raibh maith agaibh.