[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 48 (Monday, December 4, 1995)]
[Pages 2086-2088]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Community in Londonderry, Northern Ireland

November 30, 1995

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Kerr, Mr. and Mrs. 
Hume, Sir Patrick and Lady Mayhew. And to this remarkable crowd, let me 
say that there have been many Presidents of the United States who had 
their roots in this soil. I can see today how lucky I am to be the first 
President of the United States to come back to this city to say thank 
you very much.
    Hillary and I are proud to be here in the home of Ireland's most 
tireless champion for civil rights and its most eloquent voice of non-
violence, John Hume. I know that at least twice already I have had the 
honor of hosting John and Pat in Washington. And the last time I saw him 
I said, ``You can't come back to Washington one more time until you let 
me come to Derry.'' And here I am.
    I am delighted to be joined here today by a large number of 
Americans, including a distinguished delegation of Members of our United 
States Congress who have supported peace and reconciliation here and who 
have supported economic development through the International Fund for 
Ireland.
    I'm also joined today by members of the O'Neill family. Among the 
last great chieftains of Ireland were the O'Neills of Ulster. But in 
America, we still have chieftains who are the O'Neills of Boston. They 
came all the way over here to inaugurate the Tip O'Neill Chair in Peace 
Studies here at the University of Ulster. This chair will honor the 
great Irish-American and late Speaker of the House of Representatives by 
furthering his dream of peace in Northern Ireland. And I am honored to 
be here with his family members today.
    All of you know that this city is a very different place from what a 
visitor like me would have seen just a year and a half ago, before the 
cease-fire. Crossing the border now is as easy as crossing a speed bump. 
The soldiers are off the streets. The city walls are open to civilians. 
There are no more shakedowns as you walk into a store. Daily life has 
become more ordinary. But this will never be an ordinary city.
    I came here because you are making a home for peace to flourish and 
endure--a local climate responsible this week for the announcement of 
new business operations that offer significant new opportunities to you, 
as well as new hope. Let me applaud also the success of the Inner City 
Trust and Paddy Dogherty who have put people to work rebuilding bombed-
out buildings, building new ones, and building up confidence and civic 
pride.
    America's connections to this place go back a long, long time. One 
of our greatest cities, Philadelphia, was mapped out three centuries ago 
by a man who was inspired by the layout of the streets behind these 
walls. His name was William Penn. He was raised a Protestant in Ireland 
in a military family. He became a warrior, and he fought in Ulster. But 
he turned away from warfare, traded in his armor, converted to the 
Quaker faith and became a champion of peace.
    Imprisoned for his religious views, William Penn wrote one of the 
greatest defenses of religious tolerance in history. Released from 
prison, he went to America in the 1680's, a divisive decade here, and 
founded Pennsylvania, a colony unique in the new world because it was 
based on the principle of religious tolerance.
    Philadelphia quickly became the main port of entry for immigrants 
from the north of Ireland who made the Protestant and Catholic 
traditions valuable parts of our treasured traditions in America. Today 
when he travels to the States, John Hume is fond of reminding us about 
the phrase that Americans established in Philadelphia as the motto of 
our Nation, E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one, the belief that back then 
Quakers and Catho- 

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lics, Anglicans and Presbyterians could practice their religion, 
celebrate their culture, honor their traditions, and live as neighbors 
in peace.
    In the United States today in just one county, Los Angeles, there 
are representatives of over 150 different racial, ethnic, and religious 
groups. We are struggling to live out William Penn's vision, and we pray 
that you will be able to live out that vision as well.
    Over the last 3 years since I have had the privilege to be the 
President of the United States I have had occasion to meet with 
Nationalists and to meet with Unionists and to listen to their sides of 
the story. I have come to the conclusion that here, as in so many other 
places in the world, from the Middle East to Bosnia, the divisions that 
are most important here are not the divisions between opposing views or 
opposing interests. Those divisions can be reconciled. The deep 
divisions, the most important ones, are those between the peacemakers 
and the enemies of peace--those who, deep, deep down inside, want peace 
more than anything, and those who, deep down inside, can't bring 
themselves to reach out for peace. Those who are in the ship of peace 
and those who would sink it. Those who bravely meet on the bridge of 
reconciliation and those who would blow it up.
    My friends, everyone in life at some point has to decide what kind 
of person he or she is going to be. Are you going to be someone who 
defined yourself in terms of what you are against or what you are for? 
Will you be someone who defines yourself in terms of who you aren't or 
who you are? The time has come for the peacemakers to triumph in 
Northern Ireland, and the United States will support them as they do.
    The world-renowned playwright from this city, Brian Friel, wrote a 
play called ``Philadelphia, Here I Come.'' In it a character who is 
about to immigrate from Ireland thinks back on his past life and says to 
himself, ``It's all over.'' But his alter ego reminds him of his future 
and replies, ``And it's about to begin.'' It's all over, and it's about 
to begin. If only change were that easy.
    To leave one way of life behind in search of another takes a strong 
amount of faith and courage. But the world has seen here over the last 
15 months that people from Londonderry County to County Down, from 
Antrim to Armagh, have made the transition from a time of ever-present 
fear to a time of fragile peace. The United States applauds the efforts 
of Prime Minister Major and Prime Minister Bruton who have launched the 
new twin-track initiative and have opened a process that gives the 
parties a chance to begin a dialog in which all views are represented, 
and all can be heard.
    Not far from this spot stands a new Statue of Reconciliation, two 
figures, 10 feet tall, each reaching out a hand toward the other, but 
neither quite making it across the divide. It is a beautiful and 
powerful symbol of where many people stand today in this great land. Let 
it now point people to the handshake of reconciliation. Life cannot be 
lived with the stillness of statues. Life must go on. The hands must 
come closer together or drift further apart.
    Your great Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney, wrote the 
following words--[applause]--wrote the following words that some of you 
must know already, but that for me capture this moment. He said:
    History says, Don't hope
    On this side of the grave,
    But then, once in a lifetime
    The longed-for tidal wave
    Of justice can rise up,
    And hope and history rhyme.

    So hope for a great sea change
    On the far side of revenge.
    Believe that a further shore
    Is reachable from here.
    Believe in miracles
    And cures and healing wells.
    Well, my friends, I believe. I believe we live in a time of hope and 
history rhyming. Standing here in front of the Guildhall, looking out 
over these historic walls, I see a peaceful city, a safe city, a hopeful 
city, full of young people that should have a peaceful and prosperous 
future here where their roots and families are. That is what I see today 
with you.
    And so I ask you to build on the opportunity you have before you, to 
believe that the future can be better than the past, to work together 
because you have so much

[[Page 2088]]

more to gain by working together than by drifting apart. Have the 
patience to work for a just and lasting peace. Reach for it. The United 
States will reach with you. The further shore of that peace is within 
your reach.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 3:20 p.m. in the Guildhall Square. In his 
remarks, he referred to Lord Mayor John Kerr, and his wife, Corita Kerr; 
John Hume, MP, and his wife, Patricia Hume; and Jean Mayhew, wife of Sir 
Patrick Mayhew.