[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[December 1, 1995]
[Pages 1824-1826]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Parliament of Ireland in Dublin
December 1, 1995

    Mr. Speaker Comhaile, you appear to be someone who can be trusted 
with the budget. [Laughter] Such are the vagaries of faith which 
confront us all. [Laughter]
    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 delegation 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 re-


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deeming 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 dialog 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 have 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, our 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 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

[[Page 1826]]

of a million dead, nearly 2 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.
    God bless you, and thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. in the Dail Chamber at Leinster 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Chairman of the House of Deputies 
Sean Tracey.