[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 12 (Monday, March 27, 2000)]
[Pages 580-581]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.
    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.''

[[Page 581]]

    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 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. This item was not received in time for publication in 
the appropriate issue. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.