    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 11 (Monday, March 22, 1999)]
    [Pages 456-457]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a Saint Patrick's Day Ceremony With Prime Minister Bertie
    Ahern of Ireland

    March 17, 1999

        The President. Thank you very much. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
    Happy Saint Patrick's Day--and what a beautiful day it is.
        We are following the custom today, which is, first of all, I
    received my shamrocks, for which I am very grateful. And with the year
    ahead I'd say we are very much in need of them, and we'll make good use
    of them. I would like to ask the Taoiseach to come up now and make his
    remarks, as is customary, and then I'd like to say a few words about
    where we are in the peace process.
        Mr. Prime Minister, welcome back to the United States.

    [Prime Minister Ahern made remarks on the peace process.]

        The President. Thank you very much, Taoiseach. Thank you for the
    beautiful crystal bowl of shamrocks, its promise of spring, which is
    reflected in the weather we enjoy today, and its symbol of our shared
    heritage, our shared values, and our shared hopes for the future.
        Let me say first a few words of tribute to you for your leadership
    of the Republic and the success you have enjoyed. Last year was Bertie
    Ahern's first Saint Patrick's Day in Washington as Taoiseach. I talked
    then about Frank McCourt growing up in poverty in Limerick, about Van
    Morrison growing up in Belfast and hearing a new world through music,
    about a generation of children growing up in the shadows of The
    Troubles. Together on that day, the Taoiseach and I reaffirmed that the
    parties in Northern Ireland had the chance to find common ground.
        Now, a year later, look at what's happened. First of all, as I told
    the Taoiseach over lunch, Frank McCourt's book, ``Angela's Ashes,'' is
    being made into a movie. But Ireland and Limerick are doing so well
    economically, as I had a chance to see for myself last summer, that the
    producers could not find in all of Limerick enough dilapidated buildings
    to use in the film. And so in order to film in Ireland, they actually
    had to construct new dilapidated buildings. That is true economic
    progress. Meanwhile, Van Morrison's music continues to inspire people
    seeking to end the violence and, of course, most importantly, in the
    last year the negotiators did the job with the Good Friday agreement.
    The people of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic overwhelmingly
    endorsed it, and as the Taoiseach has said, enormous progress has been
    made in its implementation.
        We are grateful for the work of the leaders in Northern Ireland, in
    Ireland, and in Great Britain for their support and their efforts in
    this regard. We are grateful, in particular, for the Taoiseach, for
    Prime Minister Blair, for Mo Mowlam, and all those who have taken an
    especially leading role. We are grateful for the Nobel Prize winners,
    John Hume and David Trimble, and all the other leaders of the various
    factions in Northern Ireland.
        But as Bertie said, the enemies of peace are still rearing their
    head. We saw it in Omagh. We saw it on Monday with the murder of
    Rosemary Nelson. We saw it with another act of violence yesterday.
        Now, in a few short weeks, the time will come to bring the new
    institutions to life so that the people of Northern Ireland finally can
    begin to take their destinies into their own hands.
        To fully implement the Good Friday accord, the parties simply must
    resolve their differences, and to do it, they have to have the same
    spirit of cooperation and trust that led to the first agreement. They
    must lift their sights above the short-term difficulties. They must see
    that distant horizon when children will grow up in an Ireland trouble-
    free, and not even remember how it used to be.
        You know, on Saint Patrick's Day, we all rejoice in being Irish;
    even people that aren't Irish in America claim to be Irish. I told the
    Taoiseach at the Speaker's lunch--we just

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    came from that--I said, ``You know, every time we have these Saint
    Patrick's Day events, the Prime Minister of Ireland and all of the
    leaders of all the factions in Northern Ireland, they come here to the
    United States and they thank us for helping to promote the peace in
    Ireland. But the truth is, we should be thanking them because it's the
    only time we can be absolutely sure there will be peace between
    Republicans and Democrats in the United States. When they come here, all
    the Irish Republicans and the Irish Democrats in the United States and
    all the people who claim to be Irish on Saint Patrick's Day actually
    behave in a very civil and cooperative way toward one another.''
        I think it's worth remembering that when Saint Patrick came from
    England to Christianize Ireland, he did it without a sword, without the
    order of law. It was the only time in all history that a whole nation
    had converted without any force or bloodshed. He did it by carefully
    listening to the Irish people, understanding what they needed to do, how
    they could change, how they could not, and treating them with a profound
    amount of care and respect.
        We pray now that the Irish people on opposite sides of this last
    divided peace process will heed the example of Saint Patrick and give us
    an even bigger celebration here next year.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Tony Blair and
    Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Marjorie Mowlam, United Kingdom;
    Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume; and Ulster Unionist
    Party leader David Trimble.