[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.