WIP Annual Congressional Forum Speech

Good Evening, Congressmen, Ladies and Gentlemen, my esteemed teammates,

I am Catherine Green. In September I will enter my final year at Queen’s University, Belfast, studying for a degree in Law and Accounting. This summer I am honored to be a member of the Washington-Ireland Program Team of 2008 and am privileged to be interning in Congressman Joseph Crowley’s office. An ardent supporter of the Washington-Ireland Program, Congressman Crowley has been instrumental in securing funding in the amount of $250,000 for the Program. Congressman Crowley is not just a friend of the Program but a friend to the people of Ireland.

Today I will share with you words from our Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney’s poem, “A Cure at Troy.” Through Heaney’s words, I will relate a personal message of my experience of life in Northern Ireland and of our collective optimism for our future. Seamus Heaney wrote: “Once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.”

Can hope and history rhyme? Hope is a longing for a future manifestation of one's desires; history is about what has gone before. Throughout our island's history and our own lives we have witnessed many days that will be recorded in infamy. Human beings have suffered, got hurt and got hardened.

The violence that ravaged our land came to my own Community, one virtually untouched until that fateful summer's evening in June 1994. My Great Uncle, Barney Green at eighty seven years, the oldest victim of "the Troubles," together with five other innocent men was killed. It is on days like these that history tells us there is no hope on this side of the grave. Amidst a grief-stricken Community, the immediate consequence for me as a seven year old child was that my school Sports Day was cancelled. An annual event celebrated not only by those within my own Community but that welcomed those from beyond. From this tender age, I was aware that the only product of violence is to instill fear, thereby creating suspicion and ultimately division.

Fortunately, we journeyed on. In the months following this atrocity a state of ceasefire was declared by those opposing forces using violence as a means to obtain their divergent ends. This marked the beginning of our path, albeit a tentative journey, towards cooperation and renewal. It is a day like 10th April 1998, on that Good Friday when the peace accords were signed that hope and history converge, as our Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, wrote, " Once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme."

What we have witnessed in the ensuing ten years has been a generational change, what some may call a great seismic shift, what others may deem a volte-face by key political figures. The culmination of these negotiations resulted in last year's restoration of our devolved power-sharing government at Stormont. I was fortunate enough to be part of that unabridged and lasting hope in action, working for a member and Minister in the new assembly. I witnessed a faith amongst the people of my own constituency, but also a resounding need for our political representatives to address the issues that the population toil with day-to-day.

It is through the promotion of tolerance, the celebration of our cultural and linguistic diversity and the resolution of those issues blocking progress, issues such as, education, the devolution of policing and justice powers and alleviation of social ills, that progress and prosperity will be furthered. When I look around at my teammates and engage in discussions with them I am confident that our lofty goals are reachable from here. Individually, we possess the skills to succeed in our chosen fields but together yield an almighty force that will contribute to lasting peace in our country, the truest memorial to those victims of violence and to all who have shared in our history.

As we are welcomed in the ultimate melting pot of the United States of America we can learn from a people whose ideals of democracy have been built through diversity. So again let hope and history rhyme, let history be a continuum of events that succeed from the past to the present and even into the future with hope a binding force. I will leave you with the words of Abraham Lincoln, whose wise objectives uttered almost one hundred and fifty years ago, we seek to emulate, "Let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the wounds of our divided community; to do all which may achieve a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations."

Thank You.