[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 48 (Monday, December 4, 1995)]
[Pages 2088-2089]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Inauguration of the Thomas P. O'Neill Chair for the Study 
of Peace in Londonderry

November 30, 1995

    Mayor and Mrs. Kerr, Sir Patrick and Mrs. Mayhew, Mr. and Mrs. Hume; 
to the community and religious leaders who are here and to my fellow 
Americans who are here, Congressman Walsh and the congressional 
delegation; Senator Dodd, Senator Mack and others. Let me thank you all 
for the wonderful reception you have given to Hillary, and to me today 
and, through us, to the people of the United States. And let me thank 
Tom O'Neill for his incredibly generous remarks. I am honored to be here 
with him and with his family and with Loretta Brennan Glucksman and the 
other members of the American Ireland Fund to help inaugurate this Tip 
O'Neill Chair in Peace Studies. And thank you, Vice Chancellor Smith, 
for the degree. You know, I wonder how far it is from a degree to a 
professorship. [Laughter] See, I have this job without a lot of tenure, 
and I'm looking for one with more tenure.
    Tip O'Neill was a model for many people he never knew. The model of 
public service. He proved that a person could be a national leader 
without losing the common touch, without ever forgetting that all these 
high-flown speeches we give and all these complex issues we talk about 
in the end have a real, tangible impact on the lives of ordinary people. 
And that in any free land, in the end all that really counts are the 
lives of ordinary people.
    He said he was a man of the House, but he was far more. He was 
fundamentally a man of the people, a bricklayer's son who became the 
most powerful person in Congress and our Nation's most prominent, most 
loyal champion of ordinary working families.
    He loved politics because he loved people but also because he knew 
it could make a difference in people's lives. And you have proved here 
that political decisions by brave people can make a difference in 
people's lives. Along with Senators Kennedy and Moynihan and former 
Governor Hugh Carey of New York, he was among the first Irish-American 
politicians to oppose violence in Northern Ireland. And though we miss 
him sorely, he will long be remembered in the United States and now in 
Ireland with this O'Neill Chair. It is a fitting tribute to his life and 
legacy, for he knew that peace had to be nurtured by a deeper 
understanding among people and greater opportunity for all.
    Tip O'Neill was old enough to remember a time when Irish Catholics 
were actually discriminated against in the United States, and he had the 
last laugh when they wound up running the place. [Laughter] In my 
lifetime--I was just thinking that in my conscious political lifetime 
we've had three Irish Speakers of the House of Representatives: John 
McCormick and Tip O'Neill of Boston and Tom Foley of Washington State, 
and goodness knows how many more we're destined to have.
    I am very proud to be here to inaugurate this chair in peace 
studies. I have been privileged to come here at an important time in 
your history. I have been privileged to be President at an important 
time in your history and to do what I could on behalf of the United 
States to help the peace process go forward.
    But the work of peace is really the work of a lifetime. First, you 
have to put the violence behind you--you have done that. Then, you have 
to make an agreement that recognizes the differences and the 
commonalities among you. And this twin-tracks process, I believe is a 
way at least to begin that process where everyone can be heard.
    Then, you have to change the spirit of the people until it is as 
normal as getting up in the morning and having breakfast, to feel a real 
affinity for the people who share this land with you without regard to 
their religion or their politics. This chair of peace studies

[[Page 2089]]

can help you to do that. It can be symbol of the lifetime work of 
building a peaceful spirit and heart in every citizen of this land.
    Our administration has been a strong supporter of the International 
Fund for Ireland. We will continue to do so because of projects like 
this one and because of the work still to be done. We were eager to 
sponsor the conference we had last May, aided by the diligent efforts of 
our friend, former Senator and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell 
who now embarks for you on another historic mission of peace.
    I hope very much that Senator Mitchell will succeed. I think the 
voices I have heard on this trip indicate to me that you want him to 
succeed and that you want to succeed.
    A lot of incredibly moving things have happened to us today, but I 
think to me, the most moving were the two children who stood and 
introduced me this morning in the Mackie Plant in Belfast. They 
represented all those other children, including children here from Derry 
who have written me about what peace means to them over the last few 
weeks.
    One young boy said--the young boy who introduced me said that he 
studied with and played with people who were both Protestant and 
Catholic, and he'd almost gotten to the point where he couldn't tell the 
difference. [Laughter] A beautiful young girl who introduced me, that 
beautiful child, started off by saying what her Daddy did for a living, 
and then she said she lost her first Daddy in The Troubles. And she 
thought about it every day; it was the worst day of her life; and she 
couldn't stand another loss.
    The up side and the down side. And those children joined hands to 
introduce me. I felt almost as if my speech were superfluous. But I know 
one thing: Tip O'Neill was smiling down on the whole thing today.
    The other night I had a chance to go with Hillary to the Ford 
Theatre in Washington, DC, a wonderful, historic place--it's been there 
since before our Civil War--and where President Lincoln was 
assassinated. And I told the people there who come once a year to raise 
money for it so we can keep it going that we always thought of it as a 
sad and tragic place, but it was really a place where he came to laugh 
and escape the cares of our great Civil War. And there, I was thinking 
that America has always been about three great things, our country: love 
of liberty, belief in progress, and the struggle for unity.
    And the last is in so many ways by far the most difficult. It is a 
continuing challenge for us to deal with the differences among us, to 
honestly respect our differences, to stand up where we feel differently 
about certain things, and still to find that core of common humanity 
across all the sea of differences which permit us to preserve liberty; 
to make progress possible and to live up to the deepest truths of our 
shared human nature.
    In the end, that is what this chair is all about. And believe me, we 
need it everywhere. We need it in the streets of our toughest cities in 
the United States, where we are attempting to teach our children that 
when they have conflicts, they shouldn't go home and pick up a gun or a 
knife and hurt each other, they should figure out a way to work through 
to mutual respect.
    We need it in the Middle East, where the Prime Minister of Israel 
just gave his life to a religious fanatic of his own faith because he 
dared to make peace and give the children of his country a better 
future. We need it in Bosnia, where the leaders have agreed to make 
peace, but where the people must now purge their heart of the hatred 
borne of 4 years of merciless slaughter. We need this everywhere.
    So, my friends, I pray not only for your success in making a peace, 
but I pray that through this chair and through your example, you will 
become a model for the rest of the world because the world will always 
need models for peace.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 4:48 p.m. in the Major Hall of Guildhall at 
Ulster University. In his remarks, he referred to Trevor Smith, vice 
chancellor, Ulster University.