Remarks on receiving the Irish-American of the Year Award in New York City

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 18, 1996

March 11, 1996

Senator Kennedy, Ambassador Kennedy Smith, Niall O'Dowd, ladies and gentlemen. Senator Kennedy just told me that I could keep the gift under the new ethics law passed by Congress, and I intend to do it. [Laughter]

To John Hume and Albert Reynolds and all my many friends in the audience, all the distinguished Irish--Americans who are here--mayors, other public officials, leaders of business, to Anjelica Huston and Liam Neeson. It's a great tribute, don't you think, to the versatility of Irishmen that Liam Neeson could make such a big impression wearing a Scottish kilt? [Laughter]

I feel a great deal of gratitude to many here in this audience. It's a great privilege to me to accept this award from one our Nation's most extraordinary Irish-Americans, Jean Kennedy Smith, and your last year's honoree. She had a large hand in the positive developments of the last 3 years. Her commitment was tireless and so was her willingness to pick up the telephone and call the President. [Laughter] She has earned the gratitude of everyone here.

I also want to thank Senator Kennedy, not only for his work on this issue but for standing up for the interests of ordinary Americans and forgotten people here and all over the world for more than three decades now. This country is more in his debt than most will ever know.

I thank Senator Dodd and Congressman King and Congressman Manton and the other Members of the United States Congress who have stood for the cause of Ireland. I'm delighted to be here with a number of the Irish-Americans in my administration who are among those being honored tonight: Secretary of Education, Dick Riley; the Peace Corps Director, Mark Gearan; those on the White House staff, Kitty Higgins, Katie McGinty, Susan Brophy, Nancy Soderberg, who wanted to put an "O" and an apostrophe in front of her last name, so as not to be questioned, I want to thank Niall for what he said about Nancy Soderberg and Tony Lake. They also had a very profound role in the work that our administration was able to do.

I would also, since I'm here in New York, like to begin with something that's not in my notes. I was a young student in England when the Troubles began. And as an American acutely aware of his Irish roots, I was deeply interested in it and troubled by it. But time took me in a different direction. I went back home, I lived a different life, I missed a lot of what happened between shell and 4 years ago.

My second Irish journey really began here in New York City, and at least three of those who took me on it are here tonight, and I'd like to thank them for what they did. My law school friend and longtime friend, former Congressman Bruce Morrison, Congressman Tom Manton and Paul O'Dwyer. Thank you, Bruce; thank you, Tom; thank you, Paul.

We all know that we come tonight in celebration that is not as unambiguous as we might have hoped. We come here to face the continuing challenge of our Irish heritage. Tonight, in the land of our ancestors, the future once again is at a crossroads. And, once again, each of us must do our part to safeguard the promise, the precious promise of peace.

This matters to America, to all who believe that those children have a right to grow up free of fear. That is why we have worked so closely with all of the parties and the people on all sides of the conflict--the Catholics the Protestants, the Nationalists, the Unionists, the Irish, and the British--that is why I granted a visa to Gerry Adams and why I hosted the White House Conference on Trade and Investment, why we were the first administration ever to support the International Fund for Ireland, why I was willing to ask our remarkable natural resource, former Senator George Mitchell, to go and stick his hand in the wheel, and why I became the first President sitting in office to visit Northern Ireland last year.

As Senator Kennedy was talking about President Kennedy's trip there, I couldn't help remembering those days, even though they deprived me because of what we were trying to do to make peace in Bosnia, of the opportunity to play Ballybunion--they were still the best days of my life. [Laughter]

And when I came home with the seared vivid memories of the faces of the people in the Shankills and the Falls, lining the roads to greet us as we made our way through town, the men and women of both traditions on the floor at Mackie's Plant, the two little children, one Catholic and one Protestant who introduced me and who have now been to visit me in the Oval Office, the crowd I saw ill Derry, all the music I heard, all the things I saw, I realized that in my life I might never have 2 days like that again. But I also realized that the romance of the moment cannot strip us of the keen awareness that the work is not yet done.

The people of Northern Ireland have clearly chosen peace. They have chosen dialog over division. They do not deserve to have a small group choose bloodshed and violence and shatter their dreams. And we must not allow those who have been hardened by the past to hijack the future of the children of Northern Ireland.