We are truly low-key people, and we are humbled by all the attention and accolades following the big event. We received a sack full of post, a great many letters from hoteliers around the country expressing their appreciation and thanking us. Some of those hoteliers are here in the room this evening.
Look, I did what I did simply because I was able to. I know that most people in this room, if given the opportunity, would have done exactly the same.
Notre Dame is one of America’s great universities, among the top 10% of American colleges. I first got involved with it 16 years ago, in 1996, when Notre Dame came to Dublin for the first time to play Navy. I was invited, along with two others, to a lunch in Newman House in Dublin with the American trustees and senior staff.
During the lunch I asked them, “How did it take you so long to come to Dublin and to Ireland? You are the Fighting Irish!” I said, “If you were Jewish, you’d have been in Israel and Jerusalem long before now.”
Kathy Andrews began to cry, and every time Kathy Andrews comes to Dublin, she brings a suitcase full of handkerchiefs. She cries her way around the country!
But there was one very telling remark. One of the trustees said, “Look, I can answer that for you.” Remember, Notre Dame is the spiritual home of Irish America, the very soul of Irish America. He said:
“Our parents were so busy rearing their families and educating their children that they could neither afford to go home nor had the time. The word was always ‘go home.’ We are the first generation of Irish to have succeeded. We have become affluent. We not only want to go home, we can afford to go home. But the scary thing is that our children, one generation further on, are the first generation of Irish to be born wealthy. They were born after the struggle. Not only can they afford to go home and want to go home, they want to speak the Irish language. They want to speak and read the same language their grandparents and great-grandparents spoke.”
From that lunch, small beginnings led to big things. With Don Keough, the former President of Coca-Cola and one of the great Irish-Americans, we started the Keough-Naughton Institute of Irish Studies, which is now the finest Irish Studies institute in the world. We also formed the Notre Dame Irish Council, which Don and I co-chair.
We advocated strongly for another game in Dublin, and this time it happened. We purchased O’Connell House on Merrion Square, the former home of Daniel O’Connell, and we now send 100 students every year from Notre Dame to study at Trinity and UCD. O’Connell House is their home in Dublin. We have already sent well over a thousand students, and these young people will become future leaders in American politics and business. It is a tremendous asset for Ireland.
We also send 25 Irish postgraduate students to Notre Dame each year and bring 25 American students to Ireland. This is how real bonds are created.
Sixteen years ago, Notre Dame came to Ireland as visitors. This time it was a homecoming. The whole event carried the spirit of “Welcome Home.”
It was the biggest ticket demand Notre Dame has ever experienced in its lottery system. We could easily have sold another 20,000 tickets.
Tim O’Connor said it well: if you want people to come, you need an occasion. It can’t just be “please come and see us.” The football game provided that great occasion.
I spoke to the Taoiseach about it and he understood immediately. He went to Notre Dame for St. Patrick’s Day, hosted a dinner, and personally wrote to every single trustee with a handwritten invitation. Americans are very moved by that kind of personal touch, they never forget it.
The organisation that followed was outstanding. All the stakeholders in Ireland, the Gardaí, Dublin City Council, Dublin Bus, the airport, and the American Embassy, worked together with a real can-do attitude. There were no problems, only solutions. It was a genuine national effort.
We also got the whole family involved. My wife Carmel hosted two dinners at home for 100 people. My youngest son Fergal organised the pep rally at the O2 for 10,000 people, which was broadcast live on RTÉ and generated around 50 million hits on YouTube. Our daughter Fiona looked after the Mass in Dublin Castle for 6,000 people. And our son Neil organised the tailgating afterwards.
As one friend, Bob Sullivan, put it: “Where else in the world would you go to Mass at 9 o’clock and then have the Notre Dame band march you straight to a bar?”
Following on from the success of the first game, which boosted Irish studies and the humanities, we are now focusing on the economy. Through the Irish Council, we have brought together young Irish-Americans working in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street with young Irish leaders from Google, Facebook and other companies. They are sharing ideas on how we can work together to drive Ireland’s economy forward.
My consistent message to them is simple: there are three ways you can help us right now.
Push investment towards Ireland in any way you can.
Come and visit us again, and encourage others to come. Push tourism.
Buy Irish goods.
Practical help is what we need.
We have seen small but meaningful signs already. Dimplex has a plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Recently, our staff there started wearing green t-shirts with shamrocks that say “Proud to be Irish-connected.” That spirit came directly from the game and the publicity around it.
In June, Ernst & Young, who run the Entrepreneur of the Year awards, are sending 150 Irish business people to Notre Dame. They will spend three days there, at America’s number one graduate business school, and then go on to Chicago and Wall Street. We are using every connection and every piece of influence we have to help the country.
I will finish quickly. I am also on the advisory board of Citigroup Private Bank, the largest private bank in the world. We held one of our board meetings in Dublin last December at the Merrion Hotel. The Taoiseach came and spoke to us at dinner.
Jane Fraser, the global CEO of the private bank, a fantastic Scottish lady, presents a world overview at every board meeting. She told us: “We are a lot more confident than we were the last time we met. We see a global recovery starting in the second half of 2013. It will be American-led, driven by America’s new energy independence. America is becoming a net exporter of energy, and American industry will benefit from abundant, cheap energy.”
Because I wanted to believe it, I do believe it.
Let me finish by saying I think the corner has turned. I wish all of you a very successful 2013. I wish the Gathering every success. But ultimately, the future is in our own hands. There is no point sitting around moaning and groaning. We just have to get on with it.
And as they say at Notre Dame, in every game and everywhere we go:
Let’s go Irish!
