ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY ROBINSON, ON THE OCCASION OF THE STATE DINNER
STATE DINNER HOSTED BY PREMIER FAHEY IN SYDNEY ON 23 OCTOBER, 1992
I am delighted and honoured to be here at the Sheraton Wentworth Hotel as guest of the Premier of New South Wales, Mr. John Fahey. It is indeed a somewhat unusual and wonderful experience to travel 13,000 miles around the world and to be greeted by a distinguished Premier whose parents came from Galway, a neighbouring county to my own birthplace in County Mayo. It certainly makes me feel that I am in a city which is to Irish people "a home away from home". I want to thank you all for the very warm welcome here tonight. I have certainly received an Irish style céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes from you.
Sydney is the Premier city of the Premier State of Australia and this dinner is one of the highpoints of my visit. It is very fitting that this dinner should take place in the Sheraton Wentworth Hotel. As many of you may be aware the very distinguished Wentworth family came to Sydney from Ireland. The original Wentworth D'Arcy, the famous surgeon, was actually the first person to organise a Saint Patrick's Day Ball in this city in the 1820's. I believe some of the original invitation cards are still in existence. The choice of the hotel was clearly an inspired decision.
Sydney is where the Irish relationship with Australia began when the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1788. The lists of prisoners, soldiers and sailors from that famous voyage are literally peppered with Irish names. Hundreds of thousands of
other Irish people were to follow the journey of those first humble beginnings in Sydney Cove. Many of the migrants were somewhat reluctant travellers, the authorities simply gave 50,000 of them an offer of supervised free travel they could not refuse, but in time they learned to love their new adopted home under the Southern Cross. It is a gross understatement to say they went on to make a large contribution to this new emerging country. In fact it would be impossible to think of modern Australia and more particularly New South Wales without its integral Irish component.
Like D'Arcy Wentworth, whom I have already mentioned, many of the famous names associated with this city in its early beginnings had strong Irish connections such as Hamilton Hume, Governor Richard Bourke, James Meehan, John Plunkett and John Campbell. They helped mould this city and the new Australia into a land renowned for its love of equality and a commitment to social justice. I believe that it is a legacy we can all be proud of.
I am pleased to see that the story of the Irish in New South Wales is not a matter solely confined to the history books. We have witnessed an extraordinary revival in Irish related activities in Sydney in recent years. The Sydney Saint Patrick's Day parade is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and will soon rival New York in size. There are 40 different Irish organisations active and operating in this State catering for cultural, sporting, welfare, heritage and social activities. Most of those present here today are part of those Irish organisations and the Irish revival in New South Wales. Australia is increasingly becoming aware of its own heritage and in particular the Irish contribution to its development.
The Irish Australian economic relationship has also blossomed in recent years. Today there are several thousand Irish and Australian people working in firms which have found a profitable base in each others country. Australia is for Europeans the stable democratic entry point to the rapidly expanding Asia Pacific market. Ireland can and already does serve as an important centre of Australian business as it expands into the European Community, the most important consumer market in the world. An interesting irony in this new wave of investment has been the decision of Westpac to locate in the Dublin Financial Service Centre. Westpac was founded as the Bank of New South Wales and its first Chairman was John Campbell. Mr. Campbell came to Australia at the invitation of Governor Macquarie after obtaining his banking experience at the Bank of Ireland in Dublin. His brief was to help get the fledgling Australian banking system off the ground. The fruit of his labours is now establishing an operation only a short distance from the original Bank of Ireland in Dublin.
In the modern era both Ireland and Australia have sought to deepen our relationships with the countries of our own region. I think it is fair to say that we both could and should have been more aware of near neighbours in the past. In our case I am referring to the other countries of Western Europe and in Australia's case to your neighbours to the North, the countries of the Asia Pacific region. However, we have both rectified that past omission and we have pursued the new course with some endeavour. These new and very natural developments should be in addition to, rather than a substitute for, our older links with each other. We are changing in Ireland as Australia is changing but we are determined to retain the best and most enriching parts of our heritage. That includes our long standing relationship with our friends and kin in Australia. I earnestly hope that our two countries will preserve what is good between us and build an even stronger and better relationship on our very firm foundations.
The Poet, Seamus Heaney, once said that he believes the Irish are sometimes cautious about being seen as too Irish but he thinks we should risk it. I think there is no doubt that the Irish in New South Wales have risked it and with the result that today we are witnessing a remarkable emergence of a whole new consciousness about the Irish influence on Australian society. I salute your work here in raising the Irish profile in Australia in the words of another great Irish Poet, W.B. Yeats, in his poem
"Under Ben Bulben":
"Irish poets learn your trade
Sing whatever is well made....
Sing the peasantry and then
Hard-rising country gentlemen
the holiness of monks and after
Porter drinking randy laughter
Sing the Lords and Ladies gay
That were beaten into clay
Through seven heroic centuries
Cast your mind on other days
that we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry".
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.