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President Higgins honors Irish emigrants forced to leave in St. Patrick’s Day message

Delivers inaugural St. Patrick's Day message

JANE WALSH,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 8:05 AM

Updated Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 10:18 AM

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Irish president Michael D Higgins

Photo by RTE

Visit our St. Patrick's Day section for more news, recipes, history and "craic"

Irish president Michael D Higgins paid tribute to the Irish diaspora in his inaugural St. Patrick’s Day greeting on Monday.

Speaking ahead of the national March 17 holiday, Higgins referred to the tens of thousands of Irish people who were forced to emigrate due to the recession.

"On this day, we think in particular of those Irish men and women who, over recent years, have been separated from their homeland through involuntary emigration," he said.

"While wishing them happy and fulfilled lives in their new countries, we firmly hope that economic circumstances will in time allow them to consider returning home to Ireland."

He said we must remember the "Irish are an enterprising and resilient people".

He concluded: “All of the Irish and those who are with them, wherever they may be and in whatever circumstances, are in all our thoughts on this day we share with the world. I wish all of you a very happy and peaceful St Patrick's Day”.

Visit our St. Patrick's Day section for more news, recipes, history and "craic"

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IrelandNorth | Mar 16, 2012, 07:59 AM EDT

The only one "whaleing [wailing?] and bawling" (sic), angrypaddy/padraigfeargach, is you! Take up anger management therapy. You're pissing everyone off. Emigration remains as high under a proto-independence regime as it did under British domination because Me Feiners/Myself Alone still rule. "Labour must wait!" said Collins/De Valera in 1922. Or emigrate. Was the great smoked salmon socialist addressing his forcibly expatriated fellow countrymen in Northern[ised] Ireland?

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eiriamach | Mar 15, 2012, 05:34 AM EDT

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh! Sláinte is táinte.

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Seanmor | Mar 14, 2012, 10:42 AM EDT

Some of us who emmigrated from the Southern Irish state many years ago still regard All-of-Ireland as our homeland, not merely the part of the country of which Higgins is president. The saint whom we celebrate on the 17th of March is the patron saint of the whole Irish nation, and that includes Irish territory over which Higgins does not have any jurisdiction. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig libh go léir agus leis an Uachtarán Ó hUigín freisin.

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