Mary McAleese, President of Ireland
Monday - Thursday, May 23 - 26, 2005
TEXT OF THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH to the Irish Community Reception.
WEDNESDAY EVENTS That same evening, Consul General Dónal
Denham hosted about 600 members of the Pacific Northwest's Irish community
at a Presidential reception. People attended from all over the Pacific
Northwest, with some driving to attend from as far away as Butte and Missoula,
Montana. Others came from California, Portland and Spokane, and the Irish
in Hawaii and Alaska were also represented. The President spoke of people
in times past being forced by poverty and other circumstances to leave
Ireland. She quoted from an Irish emigrant’s letter written in 1883 from
his new home near Seattle to his family back in Co. Limerick: “‘To speak
in truth, my last thought going to bed at night and first arising in the
morning are of home. The thoughts of it everlastingly haunt my mind’”,
and she said: “So they came to Seattle and made it their home and the home
of their children but if they loved this Pacific State they also kept alive
the love of that far off Atlantic island.” The full text of the letter
can be read at www.irishclub.org/emigrant.htm. After the reception, the President spent almost an hour meeting and greeting people. All those in attendance appear unanimous
in agreeing with Consul General Dónal Denham that her visit to Seattle
was “a unique, lifetime experience, never to be forgotten”. Below are photos taken at the Wednesday evening, May 25, Irish
Community Reception. Additional Photos from the irish Community Reception can be seen at
For all the details and
Photos from her visit, see below or go to
Monday, May 23, Events & Photos, and
Tuesday, May 24, Events & Photos.
On Wednesday morning,
the President spoke to about 400 Seattle-area business executives at a
Business Breakfast hosted by Enterprise Ireland. That morning, Michael
Ahern, Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, led a delegation
representing Irish aerospace and related companies to the Boeing facility
in Renton where they toured the plant where Boeing produces the 737 planes.
Irish company Ryanair, one of Boeing’s biggest customers, has placed firm
orders for 140 of the new 737-800 airplanes. Later, the President spoke
at a luncheon at the Museum of Flight that was hosted by the Trade Development
Alliance of Greater Seattle, and which was attended by Boeing Company and
other aerospace executives. At the luncheon, she declared that the Irish
government was committed to making Ireland “a European center of excellence
for aerospace companies.”
Later that day she met with the Editorial
Board of the Seattle Times where she said that peace will come to Northern
Ireland as soon as the Irish Republican Army disbands and changes into
something resembling "an old soldiers' club". She also credited Ireland’s
adoption of free secondary education in 1969 for unleashing the brainpower
that produced the economic miracle called the Celtic Tiger. She said that
where Ireland had an agricultural economy in the 50s and 60s, now it’s
a center of information technology, aerospace, communications and financial
services.
TEXT OF THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH.
More Photos from the Irish Community Reception can be see at
www.pbase.com/jal/irishpresident.
www.pbase.com/jal/irishpresident.
