DRAFT REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY ROBINSON AT RECEPTION IRISH COMMUNITY OF PHILADELPHIA, 9 MARCH 1994
DRAFT REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY ROBINSON AT RECEPTION IRISH COMMUNITY OF PHILADELPHIA, 9 MARCH 1994
- I am delighted to have this opportunity to visit Philadelphia and to meet you this evening.
- Of course, the prospect of visiting Philadelphia itself was appealing. A city in which the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were penned and which gave America its first hospital, theatre, university and even its first computer, has an appeal all of its own. Personally, I am happy to add to this tradition of novelty and innovation by being the first President of Ireland to come here.
- But my real reason for coming here was to have the opportunity of meeting you, the Irish community. The Irish of Philadelphia have, like the Irish throughout America, made an immense contribution to their adoptive home's development. And their arrival here mirrored the general exodus of Irish in the last century, eventually dominating the city's ethnic mix. Indeed my own county of Mayo itself has a very strong tradition of emigration to Philadelphia. Dennis Clarke, who sadly passed away last September, wonderfully chronicled their story here. As he once wrote,
'the ways in which harassed and struggling people from rural backgrounds learned to live amid the extraordinary new environment of industrial urbanism makes a fascinating drama of human endeavour and adjustment....[marking] the passage of modern man from ancient customs rooted in the soil to a new form of civilization....
- And that new civilization of which he wrote is here in the city of Philadelphia, a city the Irish have made their own, just as they made cities like Boston, New York and Chicago their own. Philadelphia rightly belongs as part of that great and profound influence the Irish have had in shaping the American experience.
- Your community has displayed the pervading strength of the Irish in America and that is your commitment to keeping Irish culture and the Irish spirit both vital and relevant. The work of your societies, spanning the whole social spectrum and embracing the oldest Irish organizations and the newest, draw the Irish together and enrich the community at large. Through you own efforts, you have helped maintain the bonds of friendship between the Irish at home and abroad and ensured that a deep respect for our rich culture and tradition is passed on from one generation to the next.
- The message I bring to you is a message that I have brought to our expatriate communities wherever I have travelled and that is to stay in touch, to maintain the links between Ireland and her people abroad.
- On becoming President, I wanted to ensure that my role embraced the extended Irish family abroad, which numbers over seventy million world wide. I symbolized this with a light which has continuously shone in Åras an Uachtaráin. It has become an emblem of that wider family. And it is also a beacon, reminding you that you will always enjoy a welcome home in Ireland.