THE sense of having another identity as well as an Irish one is something that could be important in reconciling Northern unionists, the President, Mrs Robinson, said in the Breton capital, Rennes, yesterday. It was the third day of her visit to France.
The President was speaking in French to an audience at the University of Rennes, where she was receiving an honorary doctorate.
Rennes has the largest number of students doing Irish studies in France and is the only French university with a degree level Irish language course.
President Robinson, quoting Seamus Heaney's concept of "two mindedness", said she hoped contacts at a cultural level could enable unionists to feel both British and Irish.
She said Irish people were very conscious that Irish identity included not only people living in Ireland but tens of millions outside the country who had an Irish heritage. This brought "great diversity and richness", both to Ireland and to the countries where such people had made their homes.
She stressed Ireland was a very young country, which explained much of its current creativity and vibrancy. She hoped the "moral sense" which Irish people had gained through suffering the effects of the Famine would enable future generations to reach out to the peoples of the world, particularly those of the Third World.
She hoped Ireland's example of successful development could also provide an example to the peoples of the Third World.