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The Vice President: Hey, everyone, how are you?
Welcome to the White House.
(applause) And happy St. Patrick's Day Week.
In 1963, President Kennedy addressed
the Irish Parliament and he said, and I quote,
"Our two nations, divided by distance,
have been united by history."
And that is obvious to every one
of you in this room today.
And nothing exemplifies that bond
more than this building.
It was designed by an Irishman
named James Hoban -- Hoban.
Any Hobans in the room?
(laughter)
I lived across the street from a guy
named Johnny Hoban -- anyway, it's a long story.
(laughter)
And it's been occupied by 19 Presidents
of Irish descent --
(applause) --
and the remaining
were despondent they could
not make that claim.
So it's wonderful to be here today
in the White House with all of you.
And I'm reminded of a New Yorker article
that Pat Moynihan, God bless him, put on my desk
on a St. Patrick's Day back in the early '90s.
There was a New Yorker article that had Pat and
Mike sitting in a pub in New York, and Pat looks
at Mike and says, "Mike, don't you wish you were
in Dublin in a pub wishing you were in New York?"
(laughter)
At least the Irish Catholic
family I came from, that's kind of it.
(applause)
As I said today, we Irish are the
only people I know who are nostalgic
about the future.
(laughter)
Think about that; you'll know it's true.
So my mom, who passed away a couple of years ago,
Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden -- used to say --
and I mean this sincerely -- her notion was,
she said, Joey, to be Irish is about family, it's about
faith, but most of all, it's about courage,
for without courage, you cannot love with abandon.
And I think that's one of the defining elements
of -- that's the Irish of it, that passion that built
both our nations and continues to run through
the bloodstream of all Irish Americans.
The history of the journey of this great country,
in my view, has always been about promise --
the promise that anything is possible.
It's about possibilities.
And Barack and I -- the President
and I occasionally talk about that.
We're both here in the White House,
coming from where we came from -- the idea that would happen
in any other country is unlikely.
You know, no one embodies the possibilities
and promise of our two nations like the leaders
you're about to hear from.
There's an old Irish expression: A good friend
is like a four-leaf clover -- hard to find
and lucky to have.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you four
of my good friends -- and I mean that seriously --
the President of the United States
and Michelle Obama, and the Taoiseach and Fionnuala Kenny.
(applause)
The President: Hello, everybody.
(applause)
We'll, welcome to the White House.
(applause)
Once again, today is not technically
St. Patrick's Day.
(laughter)
And once again, none of you seem
particularly bothered by this.
(laughter)
At least you'll have a weekend to recover.
(laughter)
I want to start by welcoming Taoiseach Kenny
and his lovely wife, Fionnuala, who are not
just joining us here today, but more
importantly, bringing their children.
And we won't embarrass them by pointing them out.
(laughter)
But we're thrilled to have them here.
I'm especially grateful that they're here
at a time when the rest of Ireland is focused
on the final round of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament.
(applause)
And the last match of the legendary
Brian O'Driscoll.
(applause)
I know everyone wants to talk
to the Kennys tonight, but let me make sure
they have plenty of voice left to cheer on Ireland tomorrow.
Finally, I want to extend a special welcome
to Anne Anderson, the newest Ambassador of Ireland
to the United States.
(applause)
Anne is the first woman
to hold this esteemed position --
(applause)
-- which means
that they might finally get it right.
(laughter)
One of Ireland's greatest poets, Patrick Kavanagh,
once wrote, "When I wandered over my own hills
and talked again to my own people, I looked into the
heart of this life and saw that it was good."
That's what St. Patrick's Day is all about.
It's about remembering the hills from where so many
of us came and the people without whom so many
of us would not be here today.
And it is about recognizing how much
we owe to the Irish men and women who,
to borrow a line from James Joyce, lived and laughed and
loved and left.
It's also about appreciating how much
of our American character has Irish roots.
When the first large wave of Irish immigrants set
sail for the New World, many of them were already
tired, hungry and desperately poor.
And life wasn't always easier in America.
Many jobs were closed to Irish immigrants --
with signs announcing "No Irish Need Apply" --
and many of the ones that were available involved long
and dirty and thankless tasks that made life
difficult and often too short.
But the Irish worked hard.
And they persevered.
And they supported each other in tight-knit
communities, united by faith,
where doors were always open and hands were always extended
in hard times.
Or, to adapt a quote from the author Finley Peter
Dunne, there wasn't one struggling family in this
world that wasn't carrying three others on its back.
And together, they were driven by that most
American of ideas -- that with enough effort,
anybody can build a decent life for their families
and leave a better life for their children.
And eventually, that's exactly what happened.
In Newburyport, Massachusetts in the early
20th century, two-thirds of Irish-Americans were
members of the working class,
just one third in the middle class.
But if you looked at the third generation alone --
the grandchildren of Irish immigrants --
the numbers were reversed.
A majority had broken into the middle class.
So the American Dream has always been
the Irish-American Dream.
And that's why so many of you have been working
with us to fix our broken immigration system.
Under today's laws, many of your parents and
grandparents may not have made it here.
And too many men and women who want to contribute
to our economy are being denied that chance.
There's no reason why we can't do for this
generation of immigrants what was done
for a previous generation, to give them that chance.
(applause)
Because like millions of immigrants, the sons and
daughters of Erin have always lived by the words
of the great Seamus Heaney,
who passed away last year: "Believe that
further shore is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles."
And before the G8 summit last June, Michelle and I
got a chance to visit Belfast.
We saw firsthand the tremendous progress that's
been made in Northern Ireland since
the Good Friday Agreement was signed 16 years ago,
as well as the long road that still lies ahead.
And before my speech at the Waterfront,
Michelle was introduced by a 16-year-old
girl named Hannah Nelson.
(applause)
And Hannah is here --
there she is, right there.
Hey, Hannah.
Hannah is a member of the first generation
of Northern Irish to grow up knowing
the possibilities of peace.
(applause)
And in her introduction she said,
"Often in Northern Ireland we hear about
our past...But truthfully, we should not let the past
pull us apart and stop us moving forward...We need
to listen to each other and we need to compromise.
Most importantly, we need
to clearly value each other."
And so if Hannah and that generation reflects such
wisdom, I think their elders, all of us,
need to pay attention, follow their advice.
Young people like Hannah give us hope for the
future because they're driven by the same
optimism, the same belief in miracles
that drove their ancestors.
But they also benefit from something that didn't
exist for members of the previous generation --
and that's a hard-won peace that is theirs
to nurture and advance.
They have an example of what's possible.
So, to the people of Ireland
and Northern Ireland, I'll close by paraphrasing
Seamus Heaney again.
The Ireland you now inhabit is one that your
contemporaries have helped imagine.
But the Ireland that you will inhabit is one your
children are helping to build --
one that's more just, and more peaceful, and more tolerant,
and more fair.
And with that, I want to propose a toast.
And I'm going to -- this is the best that
I can do -- water.
(laughter)
Clearly, they had the wrong day.
(laughter)
May our children continue
to enjoy the bonds we share tonight -- of family, faith,
friendship, and hope for the future.
"So fill to me the parting glass; Good night and joy
be with you all."
And now it is my pleasure to introduce my good
friend, Taoiseach Kenny.
(applause)
Prime Minister Kenny: (Speaks in Gaelic.)
Welcome, everybody, here to the White House.
Mr. President and First Lady Michelle,
Mr. Vice President, Dr. Biden, ladies and gentlemen:
Fionnuala and I are delighted to be with you
here at the White House to celebrate
the Feast of St. Patrick.
Thank you for your warm hospitality in honor
of Ireland and of the Irish people.
Thank you for the toast, Mr. President.
I didn't think that austerity was biting that
far into the White House.
(laughter and applause)
As we make strides in our own economic recovery,
it is wonderful to know that our country still occupies
such a special place in the heart
and the mind of the United States of America.
Mr. President, in June last year,
we met at the G8 summit in Fermanagh.
Next day, Dublin came out with a warm summer welcome
for Michelle and Malia and Sasha.
And tonight, sir, I just want to make something
very clear: I have heard what I regard the insider
speculation surrounding your attributed desire
to keep your Vice President off our island has been
wholly without foundation.
(laughter)
And at the same time, summoning the
persuasive spirit of St. Patrick, I did put in
a word for Joe this morning --
(laughter)
His work is invaluable.
His listening ear is critical.
Thank you, Mr. President, for authorizing him
to travel to Ireland.
(applause)
We have a golf date.
So I look forward to welcoming him home with
Jill to the land of our forebears, to the land
of his people and of our people, together,
as we say, Oileán ár sinsear -- the island of our
ancestors -- where five million of us live,
and 70 million call home.
And home and our sense of it is what makes
us who we are as Irish people.
Just as the Forbes Magazine recently was
declaring Ireland to be the best country in the
world for business, out there in the Atlantic east
of here, storms Hercules and Darwin were making
a declaration of their own, through the awesome power
of nature, gifting us remnants
of Neolithic settlements, ghosts of drowned oak forests,
7,000-years-old remnants uncovered
on our beaches and land near sea.
So, Mr. President, these are excavations
not just of our history, but of life on our island,
the geology of our heart.
And they signal our tradition and our capacity
to endure and to adapt, to survive and to thrive;
to know fear, to know loss, and yet to conscript new
generations to courage and vision
and a brilliant future across the millenia.
That's why, today, we have the most adaptable
workforce in the world and the youngest workforce
in the European Union.
That's why in no other country in the world
do U.S. multinationals and U.S.
emerging companies have as big a presence as they
have in our country.
And according to the received wisdom
of it's not being enough to do well but to do good,
so I'm proud to say that despite our difficulties,
we are the most generous people in Europe in our
giving to those in need, and every day since the
United Nations was founded, the Irish are
somewhere on the globe involved
in peacekeeping or humanitarian duties.
And as we are, Mr. President, we are ever
mindful of the kindness that America, in turn, has
shown to us and to our people.
This evening, as we celebrate St. Patrick,
who was himself an immigrant, Mr. President, I am
heartened by your words, and I thank you for all
you are doing and others in this great country
are doing to help our men and women
living here undocumented.
We know America will sort this out.
(applause)
I'm thrilled you mentioned young Hannah.
I saw her deliver her words last year
on television -- congratulations.
And from you to Mark Pollack, whom I see here
in front of me, without sight, without the
capability of walking, yet he has done extraordinary
things in a sense of his vision and his courage
of what we can do with our shared humanity.
(applause)
So, sir, as we take our leave here this evening,
we do remember absent friends whom you've
mentioned -- in particular,
he who documented the dream -- the farmer's son,
the known blood relative of the gods, Seamus Heaney.
And in his memory, and in honor of St. Patrick,
let us do as he asks when he said, go beyond what's
reliable and recollect how bold you were when
I visited you first, with departures
you cannot go back on.
So, Mr. President, First Lady,
Ireland has made its departure.
There is no going back.
Tonight, then, let our two nations, our two
countries, Ireland and the United States, heed and
live the last words of Seamus Heaney texted
to his wife before he left, "Noli timere,"
"Do not be afraid."
Thank you.
(applause)