 Mr President, I extend to you and to Mrs Regan the most sincere welcome to Galway and to the West of Ireland. Ked mele farcharove gogalyev agus iranachira. Gathered here this evening are not only representatives from Galway City and County, but also from the four adjoining counties of Mayo, Roscommon, Clare and North Tipperary. They have come to bid you welcome. Mr President, when first I learned of your proposal to visit Ireland as a guest of our government, I wrote and invited you to visit us in Galway, this being a highly significant year in the history of our city. We are celebrating our quintinial, the 500th anniversary of the granting of our city's chapter of incorporation as an independent borough with mayoral status. It is a time when we are all looking back at our roots and contemplating the achievements of our ancestors whose endeavours we have to thank for the modern city we now enjoy. We are particularly proud in this regard that your own ancestors came from Irish stock. For this, our 500th birthday, we have invited all who have Galway connections or who bear any of the names of the founding families of Galway to visit us. There are many thousands of such families now settled in your country, many of whom will be travelling to Galway this year. It is interesting to note that when your first president, George Washington visited New York in 1790, he was greeted by Dominic Lynch of Galway. The name Lynch, one of the founding families of Galway, was already well known to him as Thomas Lynch was one of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence of your great nation in 1776. The Lynch family dominated the Galway mayoralty since its inception. Half of the mayors between 1484 and 1634 were lynches. While the Reagan's were not numbered amongst the famous tribes of Galway, you as President of the United States, the adopted country of so many of the tribes, fittingly represent all of them. We would like through you to extend to them all and to all the American people our warmest greetings. The strong links of friendship and kinship which bind the great American nation and Ireland are forged in history. During the 19th and the earlier part of this century, many hundreds of thousands of people left the shores of Ireland for America. They secured in America the opportunity to start a new life and they made a distinct contribution to the development of your great country. The port of Galway was the port of departure for many from the west of Ireland. Today the port of Galway and the city of Galway present a vastly different picture. The city is now a thriving university city with a modern industrial base. We are pleased indeed to have among the overseas companies operating in Galway city and county a total of 19 American companies. They make a welcome and valuable contribution to the economic life of the area. Mr. President, you may recall from my letter of invitation to you that I mentioned the connection between Columbus and Galway. There had always been the belief that Columbus had prayed in the church of St. Nicholas in Galway on one of his exploratory voyages before setting out to discover the American continent. This church which was built in 1320 still functions as a parish church and is a living monument to the past. In recent times we have secured documentary evidence that Columbus did in fact visit Galway. The evidence is in his own handwriting in the University of Seville. We are delighted that we will now have evidence in his own handwriting in the University of Galway that the President of the United States visited Galway during its quintentennial year in 1984. Galway is proud that his quintentennial should be acknowledged by the President of the United States. The great nation which had not yet been discovered when Galway City secured its chapter of incorporation. Mr. President, the freedom of the borough of Galway which Galway Corporation has decided to confer on you is the highest honor which the citizens can convey on a welcome and esteemed visitor. The freedom of the borough is of ancient origin dating back to feudal days when cities were walled and the inhabitants were a close knit community suspicious of the stranger from without. It was therefore a proof of their very high honor and esteem when the citizens decided to confer upon a stranger all of the rights and privileges which they themselves enjoyed the rank of honorary free man. Mr. President, I hope that you and Mrs. Reagan will have a pleasant and a relaxed stay in Ireland and that the bonds of friendship between our two countries will have been further strengthened by your visit. Mr. President, I hope that you and Mrs. Reagan will have a pleasant and a relaxed stay in Ireland and that the society will have a pleasant and a relaxed stay in Ireland and that the citizens will have a pleasant and a relaxed stay in Ireland and that the people of Galway Aqour Roth, Fein, August Bani, Reagan, Gagalov, Haqqaun, Kola, Kondin, Agalovir. The chairman and members of Galway County Council and the people of County Galway extend to you, Mr. President, a sincere and warm welcome to our county. Your visit to Ireland is a source of great joy to Irish people at home and abroad. We are pleased that during your visit to this country, you and Mrs. Reagan have two days of relaxation at Ashford Castle Hotel in our beautiful county. It is our earnest wish that during your visit you will derive much pleasure from the welcome of our people and from the unrivaled beauty and serenity of the Galway countryside. On your journey today to Galway City, you traversed scenes of mountain, lake, coastline and pastureland unequaled for their beauty anywhere in the world. The visit of a president of the United States to our country at any time is a signal honor. The fact that your family tree is rooted in this land adds a dimension of pride and pleasure which makes this a very special occasion. All the people of County Galway take special pride in this, the quintentennial year of Galway City. Your visit constitutes the greatest recognition that our celebrations could have attracted. That the visit coincides with the festivities is an honor of which the people of County Galway will remain justifiably proud for many generations. Historians in recording the event will acknowledge the distinction conferred by you upon the people of this city and county. In your presence, Mr. President, while the eyes of the world are focused on us, we send greetings to Galway people everywhere. It is our belief that those people of Irish origin who share this moment with us by means of television join us in welcoming you to the capital city of the West of Ireland. This great day serves to remind us once again of the bonds of friendship which join Irish people with the citizens of the United States. Many millions of those citizens share their Irish heritage with you, Mr. President. They treasure equally their Irishness with their American citizenship. Irrespective of their party political affiliations, they are united in their allegiance to the Office of President, the Constitution, and the institutions of the United States government. The Irish Americans have contributed greatly to all aspects of life and development in the country which generously offered them friendship and opportunity. They continue today to repay the generosity and nobility of past generations of Americans. Mindful of the power and responsibilities of your country and office and of past as well as present bonds that bind us together, we express our sincerest wish that your presidency will advance the causes of peace, justice, and prosperity in your country and throughout the world. We wish you and Mrs. Reagan a most enjoyable time during the remainder of your visit. On your return to the White House, many Americans will look to our country and to County Galway for their vacations and industry locations. They are assured of a warm welcome. Ráte Art Áhuctáron. Universitas Heberni Nacionales. Pre-Honorabilis Cancelarié, Turquia Universitas, Heccomitia Universitaria, Haudiae Convocatisunt, would quid them their maximia eximius at Gradus Academicus Admitata. Dr. Atas Inutroquia Yuri, Dr. Atas Cormo Jocca, Provisie Cancelarias, President Abbott Ronald Reagan. A Hanselheir, Augusta Winterna Halskelle. Volumes have been written about the shelter and opportunities which the American continent, and particularly the United States of America, has given to millions of deprived people from Ireland over the centuries. From the port of Galway, barely a mile away from here, thousands sailed westward on immigrant ships, particularly during the years of the great famine. It so happens that these were also the years during which the then Queen's College surrounding this quadrangle was being built, as were also those at Belfast and Cork. As the poor immigrants from Ireland prospered in their new country, they sent generous financial remittances back to their relatives, many of whom they encouraged to follow them. Their innate ability and acquired talents, combined with high ambition, have by now enabled those who traced their ancestry to this island to become, in economic terms, the most successful national group in the United States of America. Irish emigration across the Atlantic has now slowed to a trickle, and our young of this generation, seeking fame and fortune, must, for the most part, find these within our own country and the European community of which we are part. However, Ireland's close links with the United States and its people benefits us as American industry establishes here, thereby providing employment for thousands of our people. This important development has the added benefit of bringing new technology into Ireland, which increasingly assists in the establishment by Irish entrepreneurs of indigenous, high technology-based industries. Another most welcome initiative in recent decades has been the support from the United States for the movement of students and academic staff between Ireland and the US. As a result, American students in increasing numbers follow courses in Irish institutions of higher education. Many academics here at University College Galway and elsewhere have benefited from periods of study and research in American universities. And have brought back with them to Ireland the broad approach of the land grant colleges to education, research, and community service. The Irish-born and their descendants have over the years contributed in war and peace, in lowly and elevated occupations to the development of the United States of America. Some were university graduates. One of whom, the Reverend Frederick J. Ball, now of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a Galway graduate class of 1907, ministered in various parts of the world, and as a result, regretfully lost contact with his alma mater. However, on 17 April of this year, on the eve of his commencing his 100th year, he wrote to the president of Queens College Galway and recalled with pleasure his student days here in this college, the name of which was changed unknown to him in 1908. Then as today, Protestants and Roman Catholics studied, shared, and mingled happily together. And I commend this mutually enriching way of life to all others on this island of ours. Some American Irish have, of course, reached the highest office in the land that of president of the United States. Ancestors of 11 of these came from the north of this small island, those of two from the south. The first to trace his roots to the old Irish territory of the Dacia is Ronald Reagan, whose ancestor, Michael Reagan, as he was undoubtedly known to his Irish-speaking neighbors in County Tipperary, left Ireland about 1850 as this institution was opening its doors to its first students. A few decades earlier, another Michael Reagan moved to Galway from County Cork, and in 1813 built a flour mill known to earlier generations of Galway people as Reagan's Mill. According to James Hardiman, a contemporary historian and first librarian of this college, and I quote him, his storage kilns and general machinery are superior to any other of the kind in the province. You will know, Chancellor, that this mill, which had fallen into ruin, was acquired a few years ago by University College Galway and restored to its former glory in order appropriately to house students in modern engineering disciplines vital to the success of Ireland's newest and sophisticated industries. The Tipperary Michael Reagan arrived in the American Midwest in 1858, following a few years spent in England and Canada. He settled on a farm there, and his great grandson Ronald was born in Tampico, Illinois in 1911. Jack Reagan, his father, was a Roman Catholic, his mother, Nell, a Protestant, and his parents agreed to his being raised in the Christian church, a Protestant denomination to which his mother belonged. A graduate in economics and sociology, after a period as a broadcaster in the Midwest, Ronald Reagan moved to California and to filmmaking. We can hardly blame him. A future, and indeed the first president of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, visited the state of California in 1906. And afterwards wrote of that land, he saw west of the Sierra Nevada, and said that it could only be described in the words of Lee Oshin, the song of the legendary Oshin, as told in Irish, the language of our graduands' ancestors. She entiered his evening ill-foyle, his small coil in his feeding-grain, crying a crumb, a thunderous blow, his delureic force, her war-a-geek. In my rough translation, this description of Tyrnanogue, the land of everlasting youth, and of California, reads, it is the most beautiful country to be found, the one now most renowned under the sun, where trees droop under fruit and flower, and leaves grow to the tops of branches. After World War II, Ronald Reagan, like many American Irish before him, became active in trade union matters, serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and chairman of the Motion Picture Industry Council. Thereafter, he entered politics and served as governor of California for two terms from 1966 to 1974. During that period, he was ex-officio president of the Board of Regents of the University of California, and during his term, the university expanded with student enrollment increasing by 44%. The University of California, like the National University of Ireland, is a federation of campuses. One of its best known is at Berkeley, named after the famous 18th century philosopher and County Cork Bishop, who during a brief visit to Rhode Island gave much encouragement to higher education. He's commemorated in California because he wrote, Westward, the course of empire takes its way. In recalling this university connection, I bid Ronald Reagan welcome to the most westerly campus of our national university, and indeed the most westerly campus of the European community. I put it in the native tongue of his great-grandfather, Farham Faulty Heller River, the cloistered house of Gallup. At the age of 69, after many years of distinguished service to his home state, when most men would be happy to contemplate retirement, Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency of his country and being elected by popular mandate, he was in due course installed in the White House, where he's now served for over three years. He has applied as many talents to this new challenge, and while it is inherent in the nature of their professions, that politicians are not universally loved, indeed even the most eminent rarely enjoyed unqualified approval at home or abroad, Ronald Reagan has ruled that great democracy, the United States of America, according to deeply held economic and political convictions. We in Ireland are particularly heartened by his growing commitment, in support of our efforts, to find an urgent and peaceful solution to the pressing problems of this divided island of his ancestors. Last March in Washington, President Reagan said to our Theishoch, and I quote, let me assure you that the vast majority of Irish Americans join you today in condemning support for those who preach hatred and practice violence in Ireland. As we know, the high level dialogue between Ireland and Britain has been renewed, and the groups promoting reconciliation and economic cooperation are also bearing fruit. For our part, we shall continue to encourage American firms to invest in Ireland north and south in ways which promote prosperity for both traditions, end quote. We understand that there are more than 40 million Americans of Irish descent. It is vitally important for all of us that they and those of common heritage on this side of the Atlantic continue to understand, respect and support each other. It is our fond hope that this visit by a United States president of Irish stock will help to forge increasingly stronger bonds between us through expanded and new cultural and educational programs. Since more than 50% of Ireland's population is under 25 years of age, we are no longer the old sod, rather the new youthful Ireland. But nonetheless, an Ireland determined to develop and maintain firm and informed links with our kith and kin in the new world. Chancellor, on this, the occasion of his third visit to the land of his forefathers, I have the honor of introducing for the award of the degree of Doctor of Laws of the National University of Ireland, Honoris Causa, the 40th President of the United States of America, Mr. Ronald Reagan. Mr. Honourable Chancellor of the University of Ireland, I present to you the honours of my son, who is the son of Dr. Abelum et Adonium Ese, who, admittedly, Honoris Causa, and to the degree of Dr. Rathus, the son of Dr. Jure, the son of Chavilly, the son of Cononico, who, in my personal experience, has expanded the whole of the academy. May I go to the table and make concessa? Admito te adgradum, Dr. Rathus, in your troque Jure. Pre-Honourable Chancellor, ceremonious Rite confectus finum queso fatias, who is Conficazione's Universitarie. Mr. Mayor, Alderman, councillors and distinguished guests, it is my honour to announce that Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, is present at this meeting of Galway Borough Council to accept the dignity of Henry Freeman of the Borough of Galway. The council is now in session. The roll shall be called. An corlor mihal o lecta. An shah. An shanor fintan o kugan. An shanor garoj o miligia. An shanor mihal g o higgin. An corlor padric maconomara. An corlor thimos de brun. An corlor moran i vren. An corlor brandon o halin. An corlor shan froncius maconri. An corlor enri o crohor. Agus an corlor brigini laherte. It was resolved at a meeting of Galway Borough Council, which was held in the Municipal Buildings Galway on the 26th day of March 1984, that the dignity of Henry Freeman of the City of Galway be conferred on Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. Therefore, this special meeting was today convened in University College Galway, in order that President Reagan might be enrolled as an honorary Freeman of the City of Galway. Mr. President, I invite you to sign the roll of Freeman. I repeat it. The scroll shall be read. The scroll shall be read.