US Presidency
1995

I know I am only the latest in this time honored tradition, but I am proud to be the first sitting American President to make it back to Belfast. At this holiday season all around the world, the promise of peace is in the air. The barriers of the cold war are giving way to a global village where communication and cooperation are the order of the day. From South Africa to the Middle East, and now to troubled Bosnia, conflicts long thought impossible to solve are moving along the road to resolution. Once-bitter foes are clasping hands and changing history, and long suffering people are moving closer to normal lives. Here in Northern Ireland, you are making a miracle, a miracle symbolized by those two children who held hands and told us what this whole thing is all about. In the land of the harp and the fiddle, the fife and the lambeg drum, two proud traditions are coming together in the harmonies of peace. The cease-fire and negotiations have sparked a powerful transformation.