Your Royal Highnesses:

Lord Mayor:

Tánaiste:

Excellencies:

Ladies and Gentlemen

Mar Uachtarán na Éireann, as President of Ireland, I am deeply honoured and greatly pleased to be here with you tonight in celebration of what is the first State Visit by a President of Ireland to the United Kingdom.

I am of course conscious of the particular role that the Guildhall has played in Irish history. It was here, in 1609, that the Irish Society was conceived, during a meeting at which…