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PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has said that the life of St Patrick is a reminder of the “resilience and courage of migrants” in his annual St Patrick’s Day message.
Higgins said that whether someone is “Irish by birth or Irish by choice”, they are bound together as part of a vibrant global community.
“As we honour our patron saint, Naomh Pádraig, how appropriate it is that we recall the foundational story upon which our National Day, is based, that story of the slavery of his time as a young man.”
“Saint Patrick emerged from slavery, having been trafficked across the Irish Sea as a young man. After six years he escaped, returning to his family and his studies in Britain. Yet, in a remarkable display of resilience and generosity, he would later return to Ireland as a missionary,” he said.
“There are many powerful echoes from Patrick’s life that resonate with our contemporary circumstances, ones that have brought new forms of slavery into being, where racism is increasing rather than decreasing, in so many parts of a world, where a poisonous xenophobia, new and recalled, has taken hold in so many places. It is in these spaces where fear is being sowed.”
The war in Ukraine sparked the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, with some asylum seekers arriving here having to sleep rough on the streets of Dublin.
Misinformation on asylum seekers has surged, leading to Gardaí to examine whether a building in Dublin city centre was set on fire by a group who believed, incorrectly, that the building was to be used as a direct provision centre.
“The story of Patrick’s transformation that would lead to his becoming an emblem of the country he adopted as his own, stands in counterpoint and is so important,” Higgins said.
“While Saint Patrick’s story encourages us to reflect on the significance of migration running through our history as a constant feature of the Irish experience, we are required to respond to the ongoing, brutal reality of human trafficking and forced migration as a constant feature of human experience.”
“It is by doing that we can most fully embrace Patrick’s legacy and our own place and exercise our responsibilities in today’s world.
“The story of his life as a migrant, we must never forget, is a reminder of the resilience and necessary courage of migrants, a reminder too of the contributions that they have made, and continue to make, to the countries they call home.”
The president also called on people to extend empathy to the Horn of Africa, where millions are suffering from famines and droughts.
“How shameful it is too that 64 countries in the developing world were forced, while struggling with the Covid pandemic, to spend more on debt repayments than on funding public health,” he said.
President Higgins added that humanity has an ethical need to support each other and that it is a “tragic injustice” that those in the developing world who bear the least responsibility for climate change will be the people who suffer the most from it.
“Let us envision how our lives could be without war, famine, hunger and greed, in a world that eschews the poisonous ideals of imperialism and embraces the decent instincts of humanity that Saint Patrick embodied.”
“I wish you all a most enjoyable and peaceful Saint Patrick’s Day,” he concluded.
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This is rich coming from him in his big House in Aras.
House some refugees and stop pontificating, paying lip service with the same old soundbytes!
Ridiculous comparison.
St Patrick was kidnapped.
Don’t see anyone kidnapping migrants and forcing them to come to Ireland and work as slaves.
@Roger Bond: well forced prostitution is a thing.. minority yes but happens .
@Roger Bond: Have you not heard of human trafficking?
Going purely on numbers, that being the numbers of all people whatever their colour or origin, I cannot but help thinking President Higgins is either being duplicitous or forgetful in his thinking. Is it possible to pontificate about numbers coming in, while also complain vehemently about the disastrous housing crisis. Numbers coming in that require accomodation, numbers reaching an age where they want to purchase/rent a house or apartment, and numbers requiring accomodation following eviction are all tied together. It’s numbers, not nations.
@Keth Warsaw: well said, but you have to hand it to M D for spouting waffle and hypocrisy.
This is like something you’d expect Dougal to say on Father Ted…. Hillarious stuff!!
It is ridicolous that our President is on 5000 euro a week. That our president is on more money than the american president. Before the next election for the presidency the salary should be reduced to 2000 a week.
@rory mc govern:
2 grand a week?? Are ye messin?? Bertie wouldn’t get out of Bed for 2 grand a week.
Anytime i hear someone say – woke, do your own research, look after our own, soros, new world order, unvetted males – i cringe. Their minds have been hijacked by gobshutes. I hope this is temporary from the madness that covid brought on.
Such a hypocritical man ‘ man of the people my asre ‘ St Patrick should have banished all the snakes including Podge & the others in the Dail
He’s thriving off the xenophobia it seems.
Playing the martyr
@Pintman Paddy Losty: If he plays the victim he can then pontificate about bring in laws to silence people.
He came over and took all our snakes!
@Nomad: he left some behind in the Dail
@Nomad:
What about Bertie?
Pure twaddle from Michael D as.per usual .He’s an absolute dose on a par with Harry and Meghan : the rich and privileged pontificating and preaching to the rest of us
Ireland for the Irish . Look after our own people , NOT Ukrainians or asylum seekers .
Higgins is a disgrace to the office.
Is maith liom President Higgins.
Patrick…(Where’s patrician? – Who? – That well-heeled Briton we nabbe!?)
@Keth Warsaw: I’m not categorically suggesting the name Patrick is a derivative of the phrase Patrician (a Roman noble or well-heeled citizen – which some equally well-heeled Britons adopted, but I’ve always thought it makes sense). If correct, I wonder what Patrick/Patricians original name was? Brian? Stan? Reg? Lol
Anyone have info or corrections in this? Appreciated.
@Keth Warsaw: in his own writings he called himself Patricius. He was pretty well off I believe, but he was Romano-Briton and born and bred in Britain as far as I know. The patricians were the traditional land owning class in Rome itself and the title was hereditary. However, the word patrician (and patricius) is derived from pater, which is Latin for father. So while the Roman patricians could be viewed as the fathers of Rome I would think that St. Patrick used the title in the Christian/Catholic context where priests are addressed as Father. But I’m just guessing at it really tbh.
@Billy Pilgrim: Thankyou so much for that. I think I’ll go with your version. .My version is perhaps the Romantic idealistic one. If your version true, a fact is a fact. Thankyou again.
@Billy Pilgrim: Good craic all the same .He was mindin sheep alone for 7 yrs approx .Wouldn’t you like to know what the sheep might say about him haha
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