DUBLIN — President Barack Obama delivered a message of hope Monday to Ireland, an old friend down on its famous luck, telling an audience that filled a downtown avenue that “your best days are still ahead.”
“Our greatest triumphs — in America and Ireland alike — are still to come,” Obama told the students, celebrities and families, echoing a message he has delivered to his domestic constituency during months of recession.
The visit to a blustery Dublin, where empty storefronts and half-finished buildings stand testament to its dire financial condition, served as a mostly ceremonial start to Obama’s six-day swing through Europe.
The four-nation tour is heavy with meetings as national security issues in Afghanistan, North Africa and the Middle East stand at the top of the U.S.-European agenda.
But Obama used his Dublin stop to practice some uplifting public diplomacy, emphasizing shared American and Irish heritage and traits, including, most recently, resiliency in the face of economic crisis.
He walked out onto some branches of his family tree and had a pint of Guinness in Moneygall, the birthplace of his maternal great- great-great-grandfather. He then arrived for a street rally in downtown Dublin where some U.S. presidents have addressed Ireland during moments of despair.
“I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way,” he told the audience, making reference to the preferred Irish spelling of his name, O’Bama.
At each stop, the crowd seemed to view his visit as another hopeful sign that, after several years of recession, change may be near.
Obama’s arrival followed last week’s historic visit by Queen Elizabeth II, who became the first British monarch to come to the Republic of Ireland since it became independent in 1922.
“This on the heels of that — just brilliant,” said Declan Dunphy, who came with his wife and two daughters to hear the president.
Dunphy shuttered his beer-delivery business two years ago, laying off his dozen employees. Now he drives a cab and, like others, said he hoped Obama’s visit would translate into some tangible change.
“It will bring a lot of tourism, hopefully,” Dunphy said. “It will open a lot of people’s eyes in America to us again.”
The president and first lady Michelle Obama emerged early Monday from Air Force One onto a windswept tarmac. They hopped aboard helicopters for a short flight to a ceremonial welcome from President Mary McAleese, who apologized for the stormy weather.
But Iceland’s erupting volcano is posing a bigger problem than the rain, complicating Obama’s travel plans as it did twice last year. The president left Dublin and headed to London on Monday night — rather than this morning — to avoid potential delays.
With McAleese, Obama planted an Irish oak in Phoenix Park, near a sequoia that President John Kennedy planted in 1963.
He then visited Prime Minister Enda Kenny at Farmleigh, a 78-acre estate on Dublin’s outskirts once owned by the Guinness family.
In brief remarks, Obama told Kenny that Ireland “punches above its weight” on the world stage because of its contributions to peacekeeping missions, commitment to human rights and work on food security.
The two countries are bound, he said, by “blood links” resulting from more than a century and a half of immigration.
