[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18095-S18097]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PRESIDENT CLINTON'S VISIT TO ENGLAND, NORTHERN IRELAND, AND IRELAND

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in congratulating 
President Clinton on his trip to Northern Ireland, Ireland, and England 
and I commend him for his continuing contributions to the peace process 
which have helped silence the guns for more than 15 months.
  I was honored to travel with the President on that trip. Not since 
President Kennedy's visit to Ireland in 1963 have the people of that 
island so warmly welcomed an American President. It was also the first 
time that an American President visited Northern Ireland.
  On a sunny day in Dublin, a huge crowd turned out to hear the 
President's address in front of the Bank of Ireland at College Green 
where he was awarded the Freedom of the City. And later that day he 
addressed Ireland's Parliament, the Dail.
  Among other things, the President spoke eloquently about the tragedy 
of the famine 150 years ago and the most bittersweet of blessings which 
came from it--the arrival in America of Irish immigrants who would help 
build our country. Today, 44 million Americans claim Irish descent. 
They are Protestants and Catholics. Many came during the famine and 
many came before. All want peace in Northern Ireland. As one of those 
44 million Irish Americans, I am grateful for the leadership the 
President has shown in helping to bring peace to that island which 
means so much to so many of us.
  I ask unanimous consent that the President's remarks in Dublin be 
printed in the Record following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Remarks by the President in Address to the People of Ireland, Bank of 
      Ireland at College Green, Dublin, Ireland, December 1, 1995

       Thank you very much. (Applause.) First, let me say to all 
     of you Dubliners and all Ireland, Hillary and I have loved 
     our trip to your wonderful country. (Applause.) To the 
     Taoiseach and Mrs. Bruton; Lord Mayor Loftus and Lady Loftus; 
     City Manager Frank Feely; to all the aldermen who conferred 
     this great honor on me.
       To the Americans in the audience, welcome to all of you. 
     (Applause.) Are there any Irish in the audience? (Applause.) 
     I want to say also how pleased I am to be here with a number 
     of Irish American members of the United States Congress; and 
     the Irish American Director of the Peace Corps, Mark Gearan; 
     the Irish American Secretary of Education Richard Riley; and 
     the Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who wishes today he were 
     Irish American. Thank you all for being here. (Applause.)
       I was on this college green once before. Yes. In 1968, when 
     I was almost as young as some of the young students over 
     there. (Applause.) Lord Mayor, I never dreamed I would be 
     back here on this college green in this capacity, but I am 
     delighted to be here. And I thank you. (Applause.)
       I am told that in earlier times the honor I have just 
     received, being awarded the Freedom of the City, meant you no 
     longer had to pay tolls to the Vikings. I'm going to try that 
     on the Internal Revenue Service when I get home. I hope it 
     will work. (Laughter.) Whether it does or not, I am proud to 
     say that I am now a free man of Dublin. (Applause.)
       To look out into this wonderful sea of Irish faces on this 
     beautiful Irish day I feel like a real ``Dub'' today--is that 
     what I'm supposed to say? (Applause.) Not only that, I know 
     we have a handy football team. (Laughter.)
       Let me say that, as a lot of you know, because of events 
     developing in Bosnia and the prospect of peace there, I had 
     to cut short my trip. But there are a few signs out there I 
     want to respond to. I will return to Ballybunion for my golf 
     game. (Laughter and applause.)
       I am also pleased to announce that President Robinson has 
     accepted my invitation to come to the United States next June 
     to continue our friendship. (Applause.)
       There's another special Irish-American I want to mention 
     today and that is our distinguished Ambassador to Ireland, 
     Jean Kennedy Smith--(applause)--who came here with her 
     brother, President Kennedy, 32 years ago and who has worked 
     very hard also for the cause of peace in Northern Ireland. 
     (Applause.)
       Years ago, Americans learned about Dublin from the stories 
     of James Joyce and Sean O'Casey. Today, America and the world 
     still learn about Dublin and Ireland through the words of 
     Sebastian Barry, Paula Meehin, Roddy Doyle--(applause)--
     through the films of Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan; through the 
     voices of Mary Black and the Delores Keane--(applause)--and 
     yes, through the Cranberries and U-2. (Applause.) I hear all 
     about how America's global--the world's global culture is 
     becoming more American, but I believe if you want to grasp 
     the global culture you need to come to Ireland. (Applause.)
       All of you know that I have family ties here. My mother was 
     a Cassidy, and how I wish she were alive to be here with me 
     today. She would have loved the small towns and she would 
     have loved Dublin. Most of all, she would have loved the fact 
     that in Ireland, you have nearly 300 racing days a year. 
     (Laughter.) She loved the horses.
       I understand that there are some Cassidys out in the 
     audience today. And if they are, I want to say in my best 
     Arkansas accent, cead mile failte--(applause)--beatha saol 
     agus slainte. (Applause.)
       One hundred and fifty years ago, the crops of this gorgeous 
     island turned black in the ground and one-fourth of your 
     people either starved from the hunger or were lost to 
     emigration. That famine was the greatest tragedy in Irish 
     history. But out of that horrible curse came the most 
     bittersweet of blessings--the arrival in my country of 
     millions of new Americans who built the United States and 
     climbed to the top of its best works. For every person here 
     in Ireland today, 12 more in the United States have proud 
     roots in Irish soil. (Applause.)
       Perhaps the memory of the famine explains in part the 
     extraordinary generosity of the Irish people, not just to 
     needy neighbors in the local parish, but to strangers all 
     around the globe. You do not forget those who still go hungry 
     in the world today; who yearn simply to put food on the table 
     and clothes on their backs. In places as far away as the Holy 
     Land, Asia and Africa, the Irish are helping people to build 
     a future of hope.
       Your sons and daughters in the Gardai and the defense 
     forces take part in some of the most demanding missions of 
     goodwill, keeping the peace, helping people in war-torn lands 
     turn from conflict to cooperation. Whenever the troubled 
     places of the earth call out for help, from Haiti to Lebanon, 
     the Irish are always among the very first to answer the call.
       Your commitment to peace helps conquer foes that threaten 
     us all. And on behalf of the people of the United States, I 
     say to the people of Ireland: We thank you for that from the 
     bottom of our hearts. (Applause.)
       Ireland is helping beat back the forces of hatred and 
     destruction all around the world--the spread of weapons of 
     mass destruction, terrorism, ethnic hatreds, religious 
     fanaticism, the international drug trade. Ireland is helping 
     to beat back these forces that wage war against all humanity. 
     You are an inspiration to people around the world. You have 
     made peace heroic. Nowhere are the people of Ireland more 
     important in the cause of peace today than right here at 
     home.
       Tuesday night, before I left the United States to come 
     here, I received the happy word that the Taoiseach and Prime 
     Minister Major had opened a gateway to a just and lasting 
     peace, a peace that will lift the lives of your neighbors in 
     Northern Ireland and their neighbors in the towns and 
     counties that share the Northern border. That was the 
     greatest welcome anyone could have asked for. I applaud the 
     Taoiseach for his courage, but I know that the courage and 
     the heart of the Irish people made it possible. And I thank 
     you for what you did. (Applause.)
       Waging peace is risky. It takes courage and strength that 
     is a hard road. It is easier, as I said yesterday, to stay 
     with the old grudges and the old habits. But the right thing 
     to do is to reach for a new future of peace--not because 
     peace is a document on paper, or even a handshake among 
     leaders, but because it changes people's lives in fundamental 
     and good ways.
       Yesterday in Northern Ireland I saw that for myself. I saw 
     it on the floor of the Mackie Plant in Belfast, with 
     Catholics and Protestants working side by side to build a 
     better future for their families. I heard it in the voices of 
     the two extraordinary children you may have seen on your 
     television, one a Catholic girl, the other a Protestant boy, 
     who introduced me to the people of Belfast with their hands 
     joined, telling the world of their hopes for the future, a 
     future without bullets or bombs, in which the only barriers 
     they face are the limits to their dreams.
       As I look out on this sea of people today I tell you that 
     the thing that moved me most in that extraordinary day in 
     Northern Ireland yesterday was that the young people, 
     Catholic and Protestant alike, made it clear to me not only 
     with their words, but by the expressions on their faces that 
     they want peace and decency among all people. (Applause.)
       I know well that the immigration from your country to the 
     shores of mine helped to make America great. But I want more 
     than anything for the young people of Ireland, wherever they 
     live on this island, to be able to grow up and live out their 
     dreams close to their roots in peace and honor and freedom 
     and equality. (Applause.)
       I could not say it better than your Nobel Prize-winning 
     poet, Seamus Heany, has said: ``We are living in a moment 
     where hope and history rhyme.'' In Dublin, if there is peace 
     in Northern Ireland, it is your victory, too. And I ask all 
     of you to think about the next steps we must take. 
     
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       Stand with the Taoiseach as he takes risks for peace. 
     Realize how difficult it is for them, having been in their 
     patterns of opposition for so long to the north of you. And 
     realize that those of you who have more emotional and 
     physical space must reach out and help them to take those 
     next hard steps. It is worth doing.
       And to you, this vast, wonderful throng of people here, and 
     all of the people of Ireland, I say: America will be with you 
     as you walk the road of peace. We know from our own 
     experience that making peace among people of different 
     cultures is the work of a lifetime. It is a constant 
     challenge to find strength amid diversity, to learn to 
     respect differences instead of run from them. Every one of us 
     must fight the struggle within our own spirit. We have to 
     decide whether we will define our lives primarily based on 
     who we are, or who we are not; based on what we are for, or 
     what we are against. There are always things to be against in 
     life, and we have to stand against the bad things we should 
     stand against.
       But the most important thing is that we have more in common 
     with people who appear on the surface to be different from us 
     than most of us know. And we have more to gain by reaching 
     out in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood to those 
     people than we can possibly know. That is the challenge the 
     young people of this generation face. (Applause.)
       When President Kennedy came here a generation ago and spoke 
     in this city he said that he sincerely believed--and I 
     quote--``that your future is as promising as your past is 
     proud; that your destiny lies not as a peaceful island in a 
     sea of troubles, but as a maker and shaper of world peace.''
       A generation later Ireland has claimed that destiny. Yours 
     is a more peaceful land in a world that is ever more peaceful 
     in significant measure because of the efforts of the citizens 
     of Ireland. For touching the hearts and minds of peace-loving 
     people in every corner of the world; for the risk you must 
     now continue to take for peace; for inspiring the nations of 
     the world by your example; and for giving so much to make 
     America great, America says, thank you.
       Thank you, Ireland, and God bless you all. (Applause.)

   Remarks by the President in Address to the Irish Parliament, Dail 
      Chamber at Leinster House, Dublin, Ireland, December 1, 1995

       Mr. Speaker Comhaile, you appear to be someone who can be 
     trusted with the budget. (Laughter and applause.) Such are 
     the vagaries of faith which confront us all. (Laughter and 
     applause.)
       To the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, members of the Dail and the 
     Seanad, head of the Senate: I'm honored to be joined here, as 
     all of you know, by my wife, members of our Cabinet and 
     members of the United States Congress of both parties--the 
     congressional congregation chaired by Congressman Walsh--they 
     are up there. They got an enormous laugh out of the comments 
     of the Comhaile. (Laughter.) For different reasons they were 
     laughing. (Laughter.)
       I thank you for the honor of inviting me here, and I am 
     especially pleased to be here at this moment in your 
     history--before the elected representatives of a strong, 
     confident, democratic Ireland; a nation today playing a 
     greater role in world affairs than ever before.
       We live in a time of immense hope and immense possibility; 
     a time captured, I believe, in the wonderful lines of your 
     poet, Seamus Heaney, when he talked of the ``longed-for tidal 
     wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.'' 
     That is the time in which we live.
       It's the world's good fortune that Ireland has become a 
     force for fulfilling that hope and redeeming the 
     possibilities of mankind--a force for good far beyond your 
     numbers. And we are all the better for it.
       Today I have traveled from the North where I have seen the 
     difference Ireland's leadership has made for peace there. At 
     the lighting of Belfast's Christmas tree for tens of 
     thousands of people there, in the faces of two communities 
     divided by bitter history, we saw the radiance of optimism 
     born, especially among the young of both communities. In the 
     voices of the Shankill and the Falls, there was a harmony of 
     new hope which we saw. I saw that the people want peace--and 
     they will have it.
       George Bernard Shaw, with his wonderful Irish love of 
     irony, said, ``Peace is not only better than war, but 
     infinitely more arduous.'' Well, today, I thank Prime 
     Minister Bruton and former Prime Minister Reynolds and Deputy 
     Prime Minister Spring and Britain's Prime Minister Major, and 
     others, but especially these, for their unfailing dedication 
     to the arduous task of peace.
       From the Downing Street Declaration to the historic cease-
     fire that began 15 months ago, to Tuesday's announcement of 
     the twin-track initiative which will open a dialogue in which 
     all voices can be heard and all viewpoints can be 
     represented, they have taken great risks without hesitation. 
     They've chosen a harder road than the comfortable path of 
     pleasant, present pieties. But what they have done is right. 
     And the children and grandchildren of this generation of 
     Irish will reap the rewards.
       Today, I renew America's pledge. Your road is our road. We 
     want to walk it together. We will continue our support--
     political, financial and moral--to those who take risks for 
     peace. I am proud that our administration was the first to 
     support in the executive budget sent to the Congress the 
     International Fund for Ireland--because we believe that those 
     on both sides of the border who have been denied so much for 
     so long should see that their risks are rewarded with the 
     tangible benefits of peace.
       In another context a long time ago, Mr. Yeats reminded us 
     that too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. 
     We must not let the hearts of the young people who yearn 
     for peace turn to stone.
       I want to thank you here, not only for the support you've 
     given your leaders in working for peace in Northern Ireland, 
     but for the extraordinary work you have done to wage peace 
     over war all around the world. Almost 1,500 years ago, 
     Ireland stood as a lone beacon of civilization to a continent 
     shrouded in darkness.
       It has been said, probably without overstatement, that the 
     Irish, in that dark period, saved civilization. Certainly you 
     saved the records of our civilization--our shared ideas, are 
     shared ideals, our priceless recordings of them.
       Now, in our time, when so many nations seek to overcome 
     conflict and barbarism, the light still shines out of 
     Ireland. Since 1958, almost 40 years now, there has never 
     been a single, solitary day that Irish troops did not stand 
     watch for peace on a distant shore. In Lebanon, in Cyprus, in 
     Somalia, in so many other places, more than 41,000 Irish 
     military and police personnel have served over the years as 
     peacekeepers--an immense contribution for a nation whose 
     Armed Forces today number fewer than 13,000.
       I know that during your presidency of the European Union 
     next year, Ireland will help to lead the effort to build 
     security for a stable, strong and free Europe. For all--all 
     you have done, and for your steadfast devotion to peace, I 
     salute the people of Ireland.
       Our Nation also has a vital stake in a Europe that is 
     stable, strong and free--something which is now in reach for 
     the first time since nation-states appeared on the continent 
     of Europe so many centuries ago. But we know such a Europe 
     can never be built as long as conflict tears at the heart of 
     the continent in Bosnia. The fire there threatens the 
     emerging democracies of the region and our allies nearby. And 
     it also breaks our heart and violates our conscience.
       That is why, now that the parties have committed themselves 
     to peace, we in the United States are determined to help them 
     find the way back from savagery to civility, to end the 
     atrocities and heal the wounds of that terrible war. That is 
     why we are preparing our forces to participate there, not in 
     fighting a war, but in securing a peace rooted in the 
     agreement they have freely made.
       Standing here, thinking about the devastation in Bosnia, 
     the long columns of hopeless refugees streaming from their 
     homes, it is impossible not to recall the ravages that were 
     visited on your wonderful country 150 years ago--not by war, 
     of course, but by natural disaster when the crops rotted 
     black in the ground.
       Today, still, the Great Famine is seared in the memory of 
     the Irish nation and all caring peoples. The memory of a 
     million dead, nearly two million more forced into exile-- 
     these memories will remain forever vivid to all of us whose 
     heritage is rooted here.
       But as an American, I must say as I did just a few moments 
     ago in Dublin downtown, that in that tragedy came the supreme 
     gift of the Irish to the United States. The men, women and 
     children who braved the coffin ships when Galway and Mayo 
     emptied; when Kerry and Cork took flight, brought a life and 
     a spirit that has enormously enriched the life of our 
     country.
       The regimental banner brought by President Kennedy that 
     hangs in this house reminds us of the nearly 200,000 Irishmen 
     who took up arms in our Civil War. Many of them barely were 
     off the ships when they joined the Union forces. They fought 
     and died at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and 
     Gettysburg. Theirs was only the first of countless 
     contributions to our Nation from those who fled the famine. 
     But that contribution enabled us to remain a nation and to be 
     here with you today in partnership for peace for your nation 
     and for the peoples who live on this island.
       The Irish have been building America ever since-- our 
     cities, our industry, our culture, our public life. I am 
     proud that the delegation that has accompanied me here today 
     includes the latest generation of Irish American leaders in 
     the United States, men and women who remain devoted to 
     increasing our strength and safeguarding our liberty.
       In the last century, it was often said that the Irish who 
     fled the great hunger were searching for casleain na n-or--
     castles of gold. I cannot say that they found those castles 
     of gold in the United States, but I can tell you this-- they 
     built a lot of castles of gold for the United States in the 
     prosperity and freedom of our Nation. We are grateful for 
     what they did and for the deep ties to Ireland that they gave 
     us in their sons and daughters.
       Now we seek to repay that in some small way--by being a 
     partner with you for peace. We seek somehow to communicate to 
     every single person who lives here that we want for all of 
     your children the right to grow up in an Ireland where this 
     entire island gives every man and woman the right to live up 
     to the fullest of their God-given abilities and gives people 
     the right to live in equality and freedom and dignity.
       That is the tide of history. We must make sure that the 
     tide runs strong here, for no people deserve the brightest 
     future more than the Irish. 
     
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       God bless you and thank you. (Applause.)

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