00:00I say this is over the past few years as we've witnessed a genocide unfold before
00:05our eyes there has been deafening silence from so many for those who have
00:08long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to
00:11Palestinians silence however is nothing new for Palestinians are so often left
00:17to weep alone yet former President Robinson has never been silent not when
00:22she was president not when she was High Commissioner for Human Rights and not in
00:25the decades since as she once said commemoration is a moral act her
00:31solidarity is many things unwavering sincere and chief among them Irish Irish
00:38solidarity is no coincidence who can better understand those who weep than
00:43those who have been made to weep for so long the story of the Irish both in
00:47Ireland and in New York City is at one time a story of oppression of
00:52subjugation and of discrimination as we know it was on Irish soil that the
00:56British Empire developed their colonial project so much of the exploitation
01:00later imposed elsewhere across the world was first honed in the plantations of
01:05Ireland and yet when I think of the Irish I do not think first of oppression I
01:10think of resistance I think of unity I think of corned beef and 96 minute Troy
01:14Parrot goals and the Pogues fairy tale of New York above all I think of that
01:20solidarity when Irish immigrants arrived in New York City they were so often
01:24barred from employment and from housing signs plastered across storefronts read
01:29help wanted no Irish need apply and yet while Irish New Yorkers were in the
01:35poetry of Ivan Boland long-suffering in the bruised-colored dusk of the new
01:40world they did not grow discouraged they banded together they organized they
01:45formed labor movements that endure to this day it was Irish hands that helped to
01:50build so much of the city that we recognize today the skyscrapers that
01:54pierce clouds the tunnels carved through bedrock and we can see an example of that
02:00legacy in the incredible labor leaders that we have with us today both in this
02:04room and beyond this room and as we celebrate St. Patrick's Day together and
02:09as I belatedly acknowledge our state Senator Brian Kavanaugh as well
02:17we celebrate not just a day of revelry but a day of continued obligation to one
02:23another to a better world to all those who still weep and I want to thank President
02:29Robinson again for joining us I want to thank the people of Ireland who have taken a
02:33past of suffering and used it to fight for a future of justice and I want to
02:38thank every Irish New Yorker for helping make this city into what it is today
