The Emigration Stone

Speech by Kevin McNamara MP on 21 June 2002, Mullyard, Derrynoose, County Armagh

My sincere thanks to those who have organised this 2002 Dedication and those who conceived, nourished and gave birth to a dream in establishing this unique memorial for Ireland’s legacy to the world - its departed peoples.

On this, the longest day of the year, we are gathered on this beautiful hill with its fine view stretching over several counties.

Co Down, Co Louth and Co Meath were the lands of my grandparents’ birth. It is a little far to see Co Mayo, but the vision of Adergoole where my father’s father was born is forever etched in my memory.

We are gathered at the centre of historic Ireland to remember...

to remember those that have passed this way before,

those who left these shores fleeing hunger, poverty, oppression and loss;

those who had choice and those who had none;

those who hoped for better and those who just hoped the pain would end.

Everyone who left, left something of themselves behind in Ireland;

everyone who settled in a new land, brought something of Ireland with them.

For some - my grandparents included - the passage was perhaps a day away - the ferry to Liverpool and the welcoming arms of the Liverpool Irish;

but for many the passage was long and dangerous.

Many were lost before they arrived.

And what of the arrival? That first footstep on foreign soil... For some there were those who came before; for others the outlook was more uncertain.

In 1838 when Archbishop Hughes, himself a County Tyrone man, set about building a Cathedral to St Patrick on farmland outside the then boundaries of New York - now mid pick up a phone and talk to the whole family back home. They can sit in an internet cafe and read the local papers; they can order Irish products directly on-line. They can back a horse in the 2.30 at any hour of the day or night. And they may have a Green Card or not, economic illegal migrants.

So have things changed?

Today in this world of riches, 20% of the human population - 1.2 billion people are living in abject poverty. 2.8 billion survive on less than 2 Euros a day.

2 billion people have no access to low cost medication;

2.4 billion lack basic sanitation;

11 million children under-5s die every year from a preventable disease.

It is thought that up to 826 million are starving.

For millions and millions, expectations have dried up.

Many seek hope elsewhere.

Today, one person in fifty is a migrant worker;

150 million people live outside their country of origin.

Wars and violent unrest ravage the planet: Rwanda - up to a million dead;

Iraq - 200,000 killed in the Gulf War, perhaps a million more dying as a result of sanctions; in the Former Yugoslavia - 170,000 dead.

Kashmir - where one million Pakistani and Indian soldiers face each other off across the border, already 28,000 killed since 1990.

... Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, Burundi, Sierra Leone - the list goes on...

It’s no wonder people are seeking refuge. People are fleeing poverty.

People are fleeing persecution.

People just like the Irish over the past 150 years.

In Ireland we have our own divisions, our own intolerance, our own hatred - as the people of Short Strand and surrounding areas will testify. But since 20 June was proclaimed World Refugee Day by the United Nations General Assembly, I am going to talk about refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants.

In war, those who flee, flee to the nearest safe place.

Around the world today there are some 22 million refugees.

Iraqi refugees fled to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria; 3.5 million Palestinians are scattered around the middle east;

the Ivory Coast is host to a quarter of a million refugees.

Most will return to their own country, their own home, their own land as soon as they are able. On Monday, the UN High Commission on Refugees announced that a million had already returned to Afghanistan.

Only a minority of refugees seek asylum in Europe or North America.

And yet those that do arrive - often find the door slammed in their face.

Not everyone is rich in Europe; many people are poor.

But the people of Ireland - of all the nations of the world - should understand the desperation that forces poor people to emigrate.

On 19 June, two years ago this week, customs officers at Dover opened a an 18-metre long sealed container to find two men gasping for breath and the ghastly corpses of 58 men and women. They came from the southern Chinese province of Fujian on the Taiwan Strait. Their escape from grinding poverty and oppression ended in suffocation and death.

Wexford Business Park on 9 December 2001. Guarda, acting on a tip off broke open a container. Inside they found 13 Turkish asylum seekers. Five were barely alive. Eight were already dead. Among them boys aged 4, 9 & 12. A girl aged ten.

Container lorries are the new "coffin ships".

On World Refugee Day 2001, the European anti-racist network documented 3,026 lives lost directly through "Fortress Europe" immigration policies. This year, the figure will have been even higher.

A traditional "cead mille failte"? I think not.

Ireland must never deny its past. We are an emigrant nation. It is a badge we wear with pride. We know we have brought joy to the world!

We confronted challenges then. We confront challenges now. Today’s challenge on immigration is a challenge of relative prosperity. Every immigrant to the shores of these islands brings with them their own history, their own talent, culture and worth.

We hear alot about tolerance and multi-culturalism. But real multi-culturalism is founded on the certain knowledge that immigrants bring economic and social value.

In 1956, Ireland opened its doors and its heart to refugees fleeing Stalinism in Hungary. In the 1970s, this country was a haven for victims of repression in Chile and war in Vietnam.

So what changed? Are the victims of wars today somehow less deserving?

Leave aside the mass emigration of the famine years. In the 1950s, 40,000 people left Ireland each and every year. As late as 1986, the Irish Post in London reported that net emigration the previous year was 64,000.

Economic migrants or Asylum seekers in these islands today do not create racism anymore than Irish immigrants created racism or anti-Irish intolerance in New York or London.

Yet our fellow human beings are being spat at in the streets.

On 25 January this year Ireland got its own Stephen Lawrence - a 26 year-old Chinese student, Zhao Liu Tao was beaten to death by an a gang of racists who smashed his skull with an iron bar on the side of the road in Drumcondra, north Dublin. This is our shame.

The horror of his death echoed the length and breath of Ireland. To politicians who say the country is being held to ransom by "spongers, wasters and con men", I ask them to think some more about what it means to be Irish. What is our common history? What is our common understanding? What were Irish people called when we arrived? And how many of them came from Cork?

In October 2000, Mary Robinson told the European Conference against Racism and Intolerance in Strasbourg: "Politicians should lead by example. This is an issue which calls for a strong stance and a transparent approach. Some leaders have had the courage to speak out clearly and show solidarity with victims of racially motivated attacks. We need more of that - and not only after outrages are committed. We need to hear our political leaders championing diversity, extolling the virtues of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic societies, defending the vulnerable."

As President of Ireland, Mary Robinson pledged to keep a light in her window for Ireland’s sons and daughters dispersed throughout the world. She promised they would not be forgotten. As UN Commissioner for Human Rights, I believe she has kept that flame alight by challenging the roots of racism and offering hope to its victims.

As a Nation, we understand what it is to be tired and hungry.The generosity, kindness and tolerance of the Irish - an outgoing and forgiving people - should not be drowned in the selfishness of a new prosperity. Once we were the dispossessed.

Let us now identify with and take to our hearts the new dispossessed. Treat their needs not as a problem to be faced but a challenge to be overcome.

Go raibh maith agat!