[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 32 (Tuesday, March 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S1509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RECOGNITION OF IRISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

 Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of 
Irish-American Heritage Month and take this occasion to salute the 
generations of Irish descendants who have helped my home state of 
Minnesota grow and prosper.
  When millions of Irish men, women, and children fled their homeland 
and the great potato famine that gripped Ireland beginning in the 
1840s, they looked to America as a place of abundant food, freedom, and 
opportunity.
  Most came here with little, yet the riches they have given back to 
this country and our state cannot be measured.
  At the urging of Archbishop John Ireland, early leader of the 
Minnesota Catholic Church, many of those first immigrants became 
employees of the Great Northern Railroad and settled in Minnesota, 
along the railroad lines heading toward Montana. Since then, our Irish-
American population has flourished; surveyed for the 1990 census, 
574,183 Minnesotans claimed at least some Irish ancestry.
  During Irish-American Heritage Month, and on the occasion of Saint 
Patrick's Day, I salute Minnesota's ``sons and daughters of Ireland'' 
and offer to our large and enthusiastic Irish community the heartfelt 
words of the familiar Irish blessing:

     May the road rise up to meet you,
     May the wind be always at your back,
     May the sun shine warm upon your face,
     And the rains fall soft upon your fields,
     And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His 
           hand.

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