"THE President, Mrs Robinson, has dedicated her prestigious International Women's Forum (IWF) Hall of Fame award to "the women of Ireland" because of the way in which they inspired her. She appealed for women to be written back into history". Also honoured was the African American poet, Maya Angelou.
The IWF's a worldwide organisation of "pre eminent women of achievement and influence" in government, business, science, the arts and entertainment. It funds schemes to "promote leadership development for women" and there are plans to set up a branch in Ireland.
The programme for the gala dinner described Mrs Robinson as "President of one of the world's most conservative, patriarchal countries" who "ran and won in 1990 on a platform of change". By working for change from within, "she has stood conventional feminism on its head", it said.
She was introduced by Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, the US ambassador to Ireland, who praised her efforts to reach out to both communities in Northern Ireland. A video showed highlights of Mrs Robinson's career and the evening ended with a performance by Mary Black.
Her day began yesterday with a visit to the site on the corners of Washington and School streets along the city's well known Freedom Trail where there is to be a Famine memorial. It is close to the water front where the immigrants would have come ashore.
A competition is being held to select the most appropriate memorial and is to be completed by St Patrick's Day 1997. The organising committee is headed by wealthy property developer, Mr Thomas J. Flatley, who is an immigrant and is involved in many Irish and Catholic charities.
The President visited the Irish Immigration Centre and attended Mass at St Mark's Church, Dorchester. Last night, she received the Immigration Centre's award.
In her address, she emphasised her familiar theme of how "as the Irish diaspora takes shape throughout the world it is also shaping a broader sense of Irishness". This also "helps those living in Ireland to realise that Irishness as a concept is not exclusive".
"It is broad enough to reach out to everyone on the island of Ireland, and to show itself capable of honouring and listening to those whose sense of identity and whose cultural values may be more British than Irish. And, if this is done generously, they too - the unionist community - while affirming their Britishness, might find it easier to acknowledge within themselves a component of Irishness, of living on the island of Ireland and of respecting their nationalist neighbours for whom that Irishness is the dominant identity."
She quoted Seamus Heaney, who said that "there is nothing extraordinary about the challenge to be in two minds". She also referred to James Connolly, "who formulated a central question for us when he asked, `Who are the Irish?' The question still remains with us, challenging us to find new answers to the complex realities of the modern world while holding on to what was best and most distinctive in our past."
Today, the President will visit Boston College to meet students of Irish studies and present research awards. She will also, meet Governor William Weld and may meet his Democratic opponent for the Massachusetts senate, Senator John Kerry.
After addressing the United Nations Association of Greater Boston on the role of small countries in Third World development, the President will fly to New York where she will present Mr George, Mitchell with an award for his contribution to the Irish peace process at a Co operation Ireland dinner.