US Presidency
1995

This year in Armagh on St. Patrick's Day, Protestant and Catholic children led the parade together for the first time since The Troubles began. A bystander's words marked the wonder of the occasion when he said, Even the normal is beginning to seem normal. The economic rewards of peace are evident as well. Unemployment has fallen here to its lowest level in 14 years, while retail sales and investment are surging. For from the gleaming city center to the new shop fronts of Belfast, to the Enterprise Center in East Belfast, business is thriving, and opportunities are expanding. With every extra day that the guns are still, business confidence grows stronger, and the promise of prosperity grows as well. As the shroud of terror melts away, Northern Ireland's beauty has been revealed again to all the world, the castles and coasts, the Giant's Causeway, the lush green hills, the high white cliffs, a magical backdrop to your greatest asset which I saw all along the way from the airport here today, the warmth and good feeling of your people.