Thank you for opening your beautiful home. As an Irish American, I'm very honored to be able to say a blessing and a prayer on St. Patrick's Day. So, let me begin with the blessing and a prayer. Lord, thank you for the Taoiseach and Vice President and their families. Give them the strength and wisdom to undertake their important jobs. Lord, thank you also for the men and women of our military who are undertaking dangerous duty on behalf of the nation they love. Give them the courage to do their duty and keep them safe. Finally, Lord, thank you for the gift of this food, and we use it for nourishment and good works. And as part of St. Patrick's Day today, and many Irish blessings, I thought of one that I was going to use this morning that I liked a lot. It's an Irish blessing that's very simple: May your home be too small to hold all your friends. And I thought about that Irish blessing in this residence and thought maybe that's not appropriate. So here's another one that we all know, and I'll wrap with that the traditional Irish blessing: May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. Now, that is a blessing that we've all heard. I thought of another blessing this morning: May the coffee be strong, the remarks be brief, and remember, you can always tell an Irishman, but you can't tell him much. And I suspect there may be more than a few folks other than myself in this room to whom that description occasionally applies. So let's all remember that on this day we have the luck of the Irish with us today. Let's have that always. Thank you again.
Friends, and so I've really had a great time doing this last year, and it looks like we're going to have a good time doing this again this year. So there's so many common cultural sensibilities and common things we can talk about, so many common interests between the United States and Ireland. And that's one of the things that we celebrate here this morning. And I have this just long list of all the investments that Ireland is making in the United States of America, all the things that we're doing in the country of Ireland. Of course, about 375,000 American jobs depend on the country of Ireland in one form or another. So just an important, important trading and economic partner. But I actually think that understates the cultural friendship between the United States and Ireland. So many of the greatest Americans were people who came from Ireland or their families came from Ireland. In the Republican Party, of course, we were here, Ronald Reagan, a great Irishman and a great president of the United States. My friend Colin Tieran, my Marine Corps buddy who I shouted out last year at this lunch, is another great Irish American, is always very proud of it, and is one of the people that I just constantly just I think all of us in America, most of us at least, have somebody who has this deep connection to that island on the other side of the Atlantic, and we love it and we admire it and we cherish the incredible friendships that we have and the great things that Ireland has done for the United States of America. So, I want to give a few more shout-outs here. We have our wonderful ambassador to Ireland, Ed Walsh, who the Taoiseach tells me is doing a great job. Ed, thank you so much for being here.
We have a few of my friends from the Senate, but I think we were supposed to have Kevin here, but unfortunately his alarm clock didn't go off, so we don't have Kevin. We do have a great senator from Alaska, Dan Sullivan, who I'll call up here in a second. Dan, thank you for your friendship. We have David McCormick here from the great state of Pennsylvania. I think the first time you've done this breakfast, or were you here last year? First time. Okay, sounds good. We have Markwayne Mullin who is in for a new job potentially, depending on how his fellow senators feel about it.
We have Patrick Collison, one of the great entrepreneurs in the United States today. A very great guy and of course proud Irish American. So glad to have you at this breakfast, Patrick, and give our best to your brother. And here's let me just say one other thing. We have a little gift bag for everybody who's at this breakfast. I think it'll have a pint glass. Of course, this is St. Patrick's Day, but it also has a pair of Donegal-style wool socks. And this is actually inspired by my friend Colin, who I'm going to shout out here. So, last year when we did this breakfast, Colin said, 'You have to wear socks that honor the Taoiseach.' And so, I wore some shamrock socks. I had a different pair of shamrock socks here today. Now, I did that knowing that when we met the president later with the Taoiseach in the Oval Office, you know, I'd be sitting down, he'd see my socks and he would bust my chops about the fact that I was not wearing boring black socks, but I had these bright white shamrock socks. So, we have a slightly more muted shamrock. But we're going to see if the president notices in the Oval Office when we go to visit him in a couple of hours. But let me say we are thrilled to have you, very, very grateful for your friendship and very, very grateful for everything that unites the people of Ireland with the United States of America. So God bless you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President and Madame Second Lady and honored guests. I want to thank you most sincerely for welcoming Mary and me into your home again this St. Patrick's Day. My guess is that the president would look and say, 'Where are your socks?' But I think last year we were deeply touched by the warmth of your welcome and generosity of your hospitality. And as I said, we adore your shamrock socks. But that welcome was then and is again today a very special start to what for us is an unforgettable day. And as we gather to celebrate St. Patrick's Day 2026, we also look ahead to July the 4th, when this great nation will mark the 250th anniversary of your independence. Just one mile from where we sit this morning is Robert Emmet Memorial Park, named in honor of the Irish patriot who led a rebellion against the British in 1803. And in a famous speech from the dock before he was put to death, he declared, 'I wish to procure for my country the guarantee which Washington procured for America.' The ideals of liberty, democracy, and opportunity enshrined in your Declaration of Independence fired the imaginations of Ireland's determined patriots. And our Proclamation of Independence of 1916 references just one other country, yours, when it speaks of support to our cause from Ireland's exiled children in America. And those exiled children, time and time again, have proved both their loyalty to America and their enduring links to their ancestral homeland. Here in the Naval Observatory, it is fitting to recall the contribution of Commodore John Barry, an Irishman from County Wexford. Commodore Barry became the first captain commissioned by Congress. From capturing the first British warship to leading the final naval battle of the revolution, he earned the title father of the US Navy. His life embodies that dual loyalty that has defined Irish American history: devotion to the ideals of America while continuing to carry Ireland in their hearts. He is far from alone. It was an Irishman, as I was saying earlier, General Stephen Moylan from my home county of Cork, who first penned the term United States of America. It was John Dunlap from County Tyrone who printed the first copies of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document that bore the signature of three patriots born on our island. And it was Charles Thomson from Derry who created the seal of the United States, forever immortalizing the great symbols of American strength, peace, faith, and unity. And throughout the 250 years since America proudly raised the flag for freedom, Ireland's sons and daughters sought to repay the gift of opportunity through service to their new homeland. Irish workers helped craft the skylines of America's great cities and fortified the fabric of communities across the land. Immigrants from my home country of Cork moved to Ohio, building the roads, canals, and railways which literally laid the foundations of American greatness. The Scots-Irish, who mostly came to Pennsylvania and the Appalachians, an area very close to your heart, brought not only their strong work ethic but also fiddle tunes which melded with the African-American banjo to give the world bluegrass. As firefighters, police officers, nurses, farmers, and presidents, 23 of whom had Irish heritage, our exiled children from all the rich and diverse traditions across our island have made their mark on this proud land. Today we continue to contribute to American prosperity as a significant economic partner. Ireland is now the fifth largest foreign investor in the USA, and every morning hundreds of thousands of Americans go to work in almost 800-plus Irish-owned firms. The US-Ireland economic relationship powers the technologies that will define the 21st century and underpin growth in our economies, and Irish companies are pivotal partners in your drive to lead the global AI revolution. In neighboring Virginia, Irish companies such as Xcel Energy are providing solutions and support for unprecedented energy demand, and across the US, the technology of another Irish company is enabling the growth of everything from startups to major multinationals. Stripe's success is a wonderful example of an Irish enterprise whose journey is built on investment in America. I can remember meeting young Patrick as a young scientist... for education. He went straight to America... story. So the United States helped forge the country I call home. The story of peace...
on the island of Ireland is one we crafted together. America's unwavering support over decades and from both sides of the aisle made this possible. At the darkest and bleakest of times, all of you in this room kept the faith. And today that work continues. Parties from across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland, along with the Irish and British governments, continue to work hard to harness the full potential of the Good Friday Agreement. It enables us to deal comprehensively with the legacy of the past and to engage all the communities and traditions on our island's shared present and future. As I told Mr. Vice President, allow me to thank you and the Second Lady once again for opening your home to us. They say a week is a long time in politics, and one of the greatest Irish writers, James Joyce, laid bare so much about the human soul in just one day. And above all, his book Ulysses is, of course, a journey, a journey through, a journey into the meaning that can be found in the everyday, and at some level, a journey home. As we continue our own journeys, I'm pleased to present you with a special edition of this masterpiece. And it is our hope that this literary token recalls happy memories of your world trip around Ireland and encourages you and your growing family to make a return journey in the not-too-distant future. Let me offer our heartfelt congratulations to you both on the news that you're expecting your fourth child.
So before I finish, it is clear that the threads across the Atlantic that are woven through the rich tapestry of the United States remain strong. Those threads connect Wexford to Washington, I hope to yours in Ohio, and they can link generations past with those to come. Wishing you all, and all of you, a very happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you for meeting with us.
So let me just offer a few more notes of things before we shake out the media and I turn over to Dan Sullivan for a blessing. So we also have two very special guests. We have Mary, for the president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies' Auxiliary of the AOH.
So let me just say one final thing. We have a great and proud Irish American, Dan Sullivan, from the great state of Alaska. And unfortunately, we had to cancel our trip to Alaska a couple of weeks ago. We're looking very much forward to it, but we figured we'd put your work as your consolation prize. So, please come say a blessing before we can start this amazing day.
