00:04Germanic let me let me tell you a brief story to put this honor in context about
00:14a year and a half ago less a little less than that another great leader
00:19the hair lock gave me a gift and he said mark this is very special this is unique
00:30and it was it's a key it's a key to the White House it's a key to the White House
00:36mark no one else has it I thought it wasn't really true no one else has you
00:40had the key the White House as I was touched I was touched I said you know
00:44mr. president what does it do and he said well they'll either let you in or
00:52they'll shoot you they'll probably shoot you with this honor I'm I know that every
01:02door in Mayo will be opened at any time
01:15I also know that that's true for those who don't get honors those who come
01:22back those with good intentions and that's the true honor of this county and
01:28of this country so thank you for that
01:38Cahurlach Kerry soon-to-be Prime Minister Kearney Mayo County Council thank you
01:47Taoiseach Mayo Martin thank you for your leadership your hospitality Mary thank you
01:54for being here ministers Cleary and Dillon ambassadors King and Concanon my good
02:06friend colleague James Maloney distinguished senators friends thank you for this this
02:18great honor and this great welcome to shock I want to thank you again for amongst other
02:27things last night's dinner which was a beautiful celebration of the kinship of
02:33the relationship between Canada and Ireland and I want to thank you for being
02:38here tonight this morning yesterday when you're so busy with so many
02:44responsibilities it means a great deal
02:54and as the career look said it's great to be back home it's great for me to be
03:00back home and I am going to draw on the story that you heard because it means a
03:07lot to me and it's part of what grounds my thinking which is 40 years ago
03:1541 years ago now when I was applying for my Irish citizenship I did find through
03:21my mother and my some of you know in the historical society my very organized sister
03:26I found my grandfather's baptismal record from St. Patrick's in Ahagauer so faded original faded paper
03:39and next to his name and next to his name my great grandfather Patrick had made his mark I've thought
03:47about that mark many times and it's not a mark of absence not a mark of something that he didn't
03:56possess but a mark of presence what's available to him witnessing affirming in the way he could and the
04:05child named on that record my grandfather Robert grew up in this county looked at the life here
04:16and decided to cross the Atlantic and carrying with him that mark and the centuries that crafted it
04:25because the history here the values here the purpose here the humanity runs deeper than far far deeper than
04:35written memory as the at the KJ fields beneath the bog some of you know the oldest known field systems
04:47on earth so farmers who cultivated this land thousand of years before the pyramids were built St. Patrick fasted
04:58on the mountain that watches over this town Grania while the pirate queen ruled these waters and then when famine
05:09struck it took one in three people from this county through death or departure for new life across the ocean
05:20and when the blight returned in 1879 it was here that the land league was born and within generations the
05:27farmers of Ireland owned the land on which they worked
05:32so this county has known hardship without being diminished by it and great beauty without being softened by it
05:39and it's the county it's the people that made my family my grandparents left Mayo and crossed the Atlantic as
05:48part as you know as a mass movement of Irish that helped shape an entire country
05:55and Canada to its great credit did something unusual with those who came it didn't require them to become something
06:04unrecognizable to themselves in order to belong
06:07and it's the same bargain that we in Canada strike with every immigrant population
06:15the constant fundamental to Canada is that unity is not synonymous with uniformity
06:23that our differences are benefits to cultivate and not risks to manage
06:29and we can Ohhh
06:31in Canada
06:31in Canada
06:32in Canada
06:33in Canada
06:34in Canada
06:35we can't ever say
06:50Canada is a mosaic not a melting pot
06:54and this is a distinction that matters
06:56because a mosaic doesn't dissolve or blend
06:59in Canada
06:59its pieces. Each is stitched to each, and all the pieces hold all. And the beauty
07:07is in the arrangement, not in the blending. So those Irish who came before
07:13my grandparents helped to build that mosaic in Canada. Just next to my office
07:18in Ottawa, as Seamus O'Regan knows, one of our great former future ministers,
07:28leaders, just next to our offices. Irish laborers, thousands of them, had carved a 200-kilometer
07:36canal through forest, rock, and swamp with hand tools and blasting powder. And disease
07:41took many of them before it was finished. That canal, the Rideau Canal, still stands today.
07:47It's still used today, including for recreation. As you know, there are now 4.5 million Canadians
07:53of Irish descent. This is not a community at the margins, but it is a current that runs
07:59through the center of Canada. And it's a community, like Canada's other diasporas, that draws inspiration
08:09from its homeland. In this case, draws inspiration from Mayo. And as the Caharlac mentioned, when
08:18I was governor of the Bank of England, and that's not a place that's designed to make
08:22you feel small, I kept in my office a small map, still have, of County Mayo, as instruction, not
08:34decoration. I kept it there, so whatever came through that door, chancellors, crises, the weight of markets,
08:41the weight of expectations, I would remember where I actually came from. So the map wasn't
08:47sentimental, it's structural, held something in place. The Irish are structural to Canada, foundational.
08:56Structural in what the Irish built, structural in the millions of lives, structural in a way
09:03that a county on the edge of the Atlantic can hold a person in place oceans away.
09:10And what was true of that map is also true of Canada itself, because the story of Canada does begin
09:19in
09:19places around the world, places like Mayo, Mumbai, Merseyside, places that hold the journey in place,
09:27because we're a country that keeps the threads. And one of this island's greatest poets understood this
09:35better than anyone. And Yates issued a demand in under Ben Bolden that's always felt somewhat personal,
09:46even though I'm not a poet, very obviously, if you've read my book or listened to any of my speeches.
09:52But Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made. Remember the peasantry, he says. Remember
10:00the monks, the hard-riding country gentlemen, the lords and ladies beaten into clay through seven heroic
10:07centuries. Keep the thread of those who made their mark. And then, having galloped through all of that
10:14history, all that accumulated life, he lands on the result, which is the indomitable Irishry.
10:21Indomitable. A quality that persists across loss, across displacement, across centuries of being beaten
10:28into the clay and then rising again, not unchanged, unbroken. That indomitable Irish spirit is what we
10:37must call on now. Canada and Ireland face a rapidly changing world. One, which unfortunately is more
10:47dangerous and divided. A world that must feel as uncertain as the future must have to my grandparents
10:54when they immigrated. A rules-based order, from which we've long benefit, is eroding the values we
11:01cherish are under threat. And as reliable partners become fewer, those that remain matter ever more.
11:09And Canada believes that this moment of rupture can only be answered by positive, purposeful action,
11:17by building what comes next. So we look first to our closest allies. That's Europe, that's Ireland.
11:27Ireland. Ours is a relationship founded on those who built anew. By women and men who crossed the Atlantic
11:35in search of a better future for their children, a future they could not yet see. And it's that legacy,
11:43their legacy, that we must call on today. So that the values that we've inherited become the foundation
11:49of a better world for those to follow. So to return to Mayo to be honoured with a civic reception
12:03and a welcome such as this is a testament to this county. Also, if I may, to my grandparents' relatives.
12:16A testament to the life that Robert and Nora built for themselves in Canada, for their children and
12:22their grandchildren. And it's a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Irish everywhere,
12:27whose pride in their heritage is unbroken by distance and time and built forever.
12:36As been mentioned earlier today, my great-grandfather could not have imagined the distance of the mark on
12:43the page and Mayo would travel before returning. And the narrowing of distance is what, today,
12:50this evening is all about. A thread that runs from Mayo, from the black soil and the Atlantic light,
12:57across the ocean, through the Canadian winters where Ireland was kept alive, to a map on the wall in
13:04Threadneedle Street to this room tonight. Four generations, an ocean, one thread. I'm grateful for that thread.
13:16I'm grateful for this room and those in it, the grace with which you hold it,
13:22and the honour you've given me and my family. You're welcome. Thank you very much.
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