    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [December 1, 1995]
    [Pages 1822-1824]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Dublin
    December 1, 1995

        Thank you very much. First, let me say to all of you Dubliners and
    to all Ireland, Hillary and I have loved our trip to your wonderful
    country. To the Taoiseach and Mrs. Bruton; Lord Mayor Loftus and Lady
    Mayoress; 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. Are there any Irish in the audience? [Laughter] 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.
        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. 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.
        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.
        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]
        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.
        There's another special Irish-American I want to mention today and
    that is our distinguished Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith, 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.
        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 Meehan,
    Roddy Doyle; through the films of Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan; through the
    voices of Mary Black and Delores Keane; and yes, through the Cranberries
    and U2. I hear all about how the world's global culture is becoming more
    American, but

    [[Page 1823]]

    I believe that if you want to grasp the global culture, you need to come
    to Ireland.
        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--beatha saol
    agus slainte.
        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.
        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 good will, 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.
        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.
        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.
        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.

    [[Page 1824]]

        I could not say it better than your Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus
    Heaney, has said: We are living in a moment when 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.
        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.
        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.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. outside the Bank of Ireland at
    College Green. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister John Bruton
    and his wife, Fionnuala; and Lord Mayor Sean D. Loftus of Dublin and his
    wife, Patricia.