Irish-American Heritage Month, 1998

Proclamation 7070 of February 27, 1998

Irish-American Heritage Month, 1998

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

As it has been for many immigrants, America has always
been a beacon of hope for the Irish people, a land of
promise beckoning on the far shore of the Atlantic
where they could build a better life for themselves and
their children. Those who traveled here in the 17th and
18th centuries came primarily to escape religious,
social, and political discrimination in their homeland.
But millions of Irish immigrants who came to the United
States in the 19th century were fleeing not only
persecution, but also the specter of starvation and
disease brought on by the Great Hunger, the devastating
potato famine that began in the 1840s. Many of them did
not survive the journey; many of those who did arrive
at America's ports were hungry, ill, and crushingly
poor.

But the Irish did not come to America empty-handed.
They brought with them strong arms and an even stronger
spirit that would help to build our Nation's great
canals, bridges, and railroads. They would wrest coal
from the mines of Pennsylvania and raise the
skyscrapers of New York. They brought with them a love
of words that enriched American journalism and
literature and produced writers such as John Boyle
O'Reilly, Ring Lardner, Eugene O'Neill, and Mary
McCarthy. They brought as well a great reverence for
education and created schools, colleges, and
universities across the country renowned for their
scholarship and social conscience.

Perhaps their greatest gifts to America have been a
abiding love of liberty, and an patriotic spirit. Irish
Americans have served with distinction in every
American conflict, from the Revolutionary War to the
Persian Gulf, and their keen sense of social justice
made them among the first and most effective voices for
labor reform. From Mary Kenney O'Sullivan to George
Meany, they have been in the vanguard of efforts to
improve working conditions and wages for all Americans.
Generations of Irish Americans entered public service
to reach out to those in need--to feed the poor, find
jobs for the unemployed, fight for racial equality, and
champion social reform. From the Kennedys of
Massachusetts to the Daleys of Chicago, from Governor
Al Smith to Ambassador Mike Mansfield, Americans of
Irish descent have made important and enduring
contributions to the public life of our Nation.

The United States continues to draw strength and vision
from our multicultural, multiracial society. This
month, when citizens across the country celebrate Saint
Patrick's Day, we remember with special gratitude the
gifts of Irish Americans: faith in God, love of family
and community, and an unswerving commitment to freedom
and justice that continues to enrich our Nation and
fulfill the promise envisioned by the first Irish
immigrants who turned their eyes and hearts toward
America so many years ago.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim March 1998 as Irish-American
Heritage Month. I call upon all the people of the
United States to observe this month with appropriate
ceremonies, programs, and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-seventh day of February, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-second.