    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 17, 2000]
    [Pages 488-489]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Saint Patrick's Day Reception
    March 17, 2000

        The President. Thank you. Welcome to the White House. I want to join
    Hillary in thanking our entertainers.
    I welcome you, Taoiseach, and all the members
    of your government and your entourage, and all of our guests from
    Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Members of Congress who are here. I
    want to thank the members of the British Government who are here, Peter
    Mandelson and British Ambassador Christopher
    Meyer; Sean O'hUiginn, your Ambassador here, and Brian Cowen, the Irish Foreign Minister; and all the Government.
        And I want to thank our Ambassadors to Ireland, Governor Mike
    Sullivan, and to Great Britain, Phil
    Lader. And our former Irish Ambassador, Jean
    Kennedy Smith, is here, with a fair
    measure of her family we welcome here.
        I want to say that I do love Seamus Heaney's poetry, and I love what he quoted, that I quoted. I
    actually wrote a book in 1996 and cribbed his words, ``of hope and
    history.'' But you know, he's done better than having me quote his
    lines. He's done better than winning the Nobel Prize. He's actually
    managed to make ``Beowulf'' interesting. [Laughter] And in honor of
    that, if we don't get this mess straightened out pretty soon, I may
    appoint you to succeed George Mitchell.
    [Laughter] Anybody that can make ``Beowulf'' interesting is my guy.
    [Laughter]
        I also want to join others in thanking my great friend Senator
    George Mitchell for the magnificent work
    he has done. I want to thank all those who met with me today from the
    various parties in Northern Ireland for saying that you would continue
    the search for peace.
        I was thinking, when Hillary said that I was singing ``Danny Boy''--
    which was rude, I realize, but I couldn't control myself. [Laughter] I'm
    one of the few Americans that knows all the words to the second verse.
    [Laughter]
        First Lady Hillary Clinton. Shall
    we sing it?
        The President.  And I believe the second verse is more beautiful
    than the first and really the mark of a life well lived, if someone you
    really loved would kneel at your grave and tell you that they loved you.
    And so I thank you, sir, for that gift tonight.
        And I was thinking--just one other thing. I have nothing to add to
    what I said last night, and most of you were at the American Ireland
    Fund dinner. But the lines from ``The Cure at Troy'' which
    Seamus read are far more remarkable when you
    fully understand their context. The man who is saying that--the chorus
    is singing this chant:

        Hope for a great sea change on the far side of revenge,
        Believe in cures and miracles and healing wells.

         They're saying that about Philoctetes, who was a Greek in the
    Trojan Wars, who was very important to the military efforts of Ulysses
    because he had a magic bow. And legend had it that the gods always
    blessed Philoctetes, and whenever he brought his magic bow into play,
    the Greeks always won. But after a battle in which he was badly wounded
    in the leg, he was dumped unceremoniously on a god-forsaken piece of
    rock in the Aegean and abandoned for a decade, where his foot rotted
    into a stump. He never saw another living human being. He turned into a
    virtual feral beast.

    [[Page 489]]

        And then, Ulysses came up with this great idea that they could
    finally win the Trojan War if they made this big horse and filled it
    full of soldiers and made it look like an act of friendship, and then
    they would trick the Trojans and win the war. But he was sent the
    message that he couldn't win without Philoctetes. So he said, ``After I
    stuffed this guy on this island and left him to die, and I thought he
    was dead, and now I know he's living, how in the wide world will I ever
    get him to come and do anything for me again?''
        So he takes a young guy and he goes to the island, and the young guy
    goes up and starts talking to Philoctetes. That's what this whole play
    is about. And he basically pretends to be someone else. And finally,
    Ulysses realizes he's never going to get the guy off until he goes out
    and fesses up. So he goes up and tells him who he is, what he did, and
    he just says, ``I have to ask you to come with me. I cannot do this
    without you.''
        And against all the odds, Philoctetes forgives him, limps down to
    the boat with his bow, sails off into the Aegean, and the rest is
    history. But the important thing you need to know is, after this
    beautiful chorus which Seamus read, as he is
    sailing away from this island where he spent 10 years all alone, finding
    within himself not hatred but the strength to love a man who had
    abandoned him, he looks back at the island and says, ``It was a
    fortunate wind that blew me here.''
        When Nelson Mandela--we have the
    Ambassador from South Africa here--when he
    took me to Robben Island, that's all I could think of. After 27 God-
    forsaken years, it was a fortunate wind that blew him there. And to all
    of you on this, my last Saint Patrick's Day, it was a fortunate wind
    that blew me into your presence.
        But for all of that, I kept thinking to myself, as the children were
    up here playing their bells so beautifully, that this whole thing really
    has to be about them. And we can compliment each other from now until
    the end of our lives, with all of our beautiful words and all of our
    warm memories. But unless the wind blows all of us toward final peace,
    we will have let them down, and all of our poetry will have fallen on
    deaf ears.
        So on this Saint Patrick's Day, let us remember, if we have the
    eloquence of Seamus and the heart of
    Philoctetes and the goodness of Saint Patrick, we can do what we were
    meant to do in this fleeting life.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.
        Now, I want to ask our most distinguished guest to say a few words,
    but before I bring the Taoiseach up, let me
    tell you this: I have worked with two of his predecessors. I liked them
    both very much. They wanted very much to make peace. They did everything
    that could reasonably have been expected of them. But this man is very
    special, and everybody involved in this process knows it. And if we make
    it, it will be in no small measure due to the heroic and wise efforts of
    Bertie Ahern.
        Taoiseach.

     Note:  The President spoke at 8:50 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and
    former Prime Ministers Albert Reynolds and John Bruton of Ireland; Peter
    Mandelson, United Kingdom Secretary of State for Northern Ireland;
    former Senator George Mitchell, who chaired the multiparty talks in
    Northern Ireland; and former President Nelson Mandela and Ambassador
    Sheila Sisulu of South Africa. The transcript released by the Office of
    the Press Secretary also included the remarks of Prime Minister Ahern. A
    tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.