REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE RETURN RECEPTION FOR THE STATE VISIT
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE RETURN RECEPTION FOR THE STATE VISIT TO ESTONIA NATIONAL MUSEUM
Mr President, Mrs Meri, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
- I hope those of you not immediately familiar with Irish music will have been encouraged by what we have just heard to explore and enjoy more of our Irish musical traditions in the future. For those of you who are already familiar - and I am told there is a strong audience for Irish music in Estonia - I trust you have enjoyed something a little novel and exciting. I know Estonians have a great love of music and that so often it was through music you kept alive the hopes of your people for freedom and nationhood. We in Ireland understand that well and our performers tonight, Dordan, come from Galway on Ireland’s western seaboard, a heartland for Irish musical tradition. The versatility of the individual musicians, Mary, Martina, Kathleen and Dearbhaill is truly impressive and I am sure you will join with me in giving our heartfelt thanks to Dordan for this wonderful performance.
- The works we have heard tonight come from both the pure traditional music repertoire and also from the Irish bardic repertoire with its very obvious echoes of the European baroque tradition. It is proof once more of the historic cultural ties that exist between our island nation and continental Europe. Of even more interest, perhaps, is the way in which the pure traditional music also seems to resonate with certain sounds from Estonia’s own very rich and renowned musical heritage. It is an uplifting sign of the way that our two countries, although separated by distance, one on the far western rim of Europe, the other on the eastern rim, and two peoples with different historic pathways, complement each other so well in so many ways. We have much to share with each other in the future.
- Mr President, sadly we approach the end of our visit to your beautiful country. We came here as strangers to this intriguing part of the world but we leave as friends who look forward to building on that friendship. In a short time we have already learnt such a lot and more importantly we leave not just with the respect and curiosity about the Estonian people that we came with but with a love that can only come from a handshake and a chat between people who have a natural empathy for one another. I hope that empathy will not be tested too much in the near future when our soccer team arrives here for the World Cup qualifier match.
- In terms of experience gained, what has been exchanged in the last two days has been significant for our two countries. We are to be colleagues in the European Union in the very near future and to be the best of colleagues, to be people who care about each other and have a sensitivity to each other’s interests, it is so important that we know each other well.
It is encouraging that some links have already been built up between our two countries at official level and in addition, Estonia has had for some time a resident diplomatic mission in Dublin. Our mutual trade is modest but has grown in recent years and reached a new peak of over £32 million last year.
- But strengthening friendship, building solid, robust networks of relationships - these are things you can never do too much of and I hope that with this first State Visit from Ireland to Estonia we will grow in joyful curiosity about each other and will be eager to deepen and widen the points of contact between us.
- The decade since Estonian independence was re-established has been used wisely and has earned Estonia great admiration and respect. You are now well on the way to qualifying for membership of the European Union and this is a time in a country’s life which we in Ireland remember well. It is a time of tremendous hope and opportunity, a time too of considerable nervousness and doubt. That these conflicting emotions exist side by side is not surprising. The change contemplated is a momentous exercise of hard-won sovereignty. We too travelled that same journey and thirty years later our small country is able to say that membership of the EU has given us greater, not less, freedom, has helped us, along with our own efforts to become the country of achievement and opportunity, so many past generations went to their graves hoping in, despairing of and praying for.
With leaders such as you, Mr President, to show the way, Estonia was able to emerge from the long dark night of foreign and totalitarian rule to a new dawn of freedom, democracy and economic reform. Your own historical works contributed to the development of the Estonian national consciousness at a difficult moment in your country’s history and your stature today, as President, adds to Estonia’s prestige and widespread respect abroad. Your freedom was hard earned and it has presented you with remarkable opportunities for a very different kind of future. Your future plans include joining Ireland and the other member states of the European Union in the noblest adventure in democracy, in consensus, in sharing ever undertaken on this continent. It has been a great joy to me to have had this chance to get to know our soon to be fellow and sister travellers on this road to a much happier, much more prosperous, more secure, more humanly decent Europe than the one our parents and grandparents grew up in.
On this the first State visit between our two countries, Mr President, you and Mrs Meri have been most generous hosts. I offer you my warmest thanks on behalf of my husband Martin and myself and on behalf of the Irish delegation. I would also like to express my appreciation to the Government of Estonia and all of those who worked so tirelessly in making this visit such a success. It has been our privilege to be your guests over the past few days. We return to Ireland with memories to treasure and friends to get to know even better in the years ahead.