Eunice Kennedy Shriver Speech for 2003 World Games Opening Ceremonies [Greeting to platform participants: --- Good Evening President McAleese, An Taoiseach and Special Olympics athletes, families, friends and supporters. Forty years ago this week, I came to Ireland with my brother, President Kennedy. The first words that President Eamon de Valera said to us in Dublin were the immortal Gaelic greeting: Céad mile fáilte. For centuries, Céad mile fáilte has been the blessing bestowed by this great country. Whoever you are, says Ireland, please come here, please stay, you are welcome! And in reply, President Kennedy recalled that all eight of our great-grandparents had been part of that enormous - often heart-breaking - exodus 160 years before, when so many thousand sons and daughters of Ireland escaped tragedy at their doors and sought freedom on distant shores. As President Kennedy noted, “They left behind hearts, fields, and a nation yearning to be free. It is no wonder that James Joyce described the Atlantic as a bowl of bitter tears. And an earlier poet wrote: 'They are going, going, going, and we cannot bid them stay'.” Yet President Kennedy said that by spreading throughout the world, the Irish gave “this small island a family of millions who are scattered all over the globe.” That is why, “in a sense, all of them who visit Ireland come home,” he said. But Tonight, I say: It is good to be home. Now we come to celebrate the beginning of the greatest sports competition ever held in Ireland. It is for YOU, the athletes here tonight, to dedicate this place. Tonight, in this beautiful stadium, in each story of each athlete here, the Irish dream of freedom and dignity and justice is fulfilled. Yet even as we celebrate opening the largest games in the history of the Special Olympics and the extraordinary human beings who are the athletes of Special Olympics, we cannot pause in our mission. We must remember that there are 170 million people with intellectual disabilities in the world. They have suffered and continue to suffer the most unmentionable indignities. Think for a moment of those who are not here: Of those in South Africa who sit alone in a cold institution; of those in China who will never put on a backpack and go to school; of those in Washington, D.C. who cry at night because they don't understand why they have no friends - why no one greets them with Céad mile fáilte. Think also of their parents - think of the mother who loves her special child but feels so desperately alone. They have done nothing wrong, committed no crime, perpetrated no injustice. They are the world's most innocent victims, and they have suffered all of this only because they are different. Tonight, the world around us is a place of fear and division - the images of war are fresh; the terror of violence is everywhere; the tragedies of poverty and disease are spiraling out of control. People look warily at their neighbors, at their countrymen, at those across the sea. Around the globe, millions of human beings are caught in a world of misunderstanding and fear; they struggle to find one single message from their fellow human beings: Welcome But tonight, I say to all those who are afraid, or forgotten, what you seek is here in Ireland. For if you seek joy, come see the athletes of Special Olympics! If you seek peace and understanding, come see the athletes of Special Olympics! If you seek courage or strength or skill, come see the athletes of Special Olympics! And if you seek to embrace the world and to find in her a friend, stop your search! The great and noble athletes of Special Olympics, so often rejected and too many times told “no,” are living in your villages and cities and towns, and they are the true messengers of “YES!” Tonight we pledge to bring the thrill of sports to 1 million new athletes from 150 countries by the year 2005. We also commit to changing the lives of everyone they touch - families, nondisabled children, volunteers, health care professionals and political leaders worldwide. This is an ambitious challenge - but we will achieve it! We will achieve it because we will follow the limitless spirit of Special Olympics, the spirit of the athletes themselves. As Timothy, our President, has said, “ We must recognize the full human equally and justice of all of our people before God; before the law and in the councils of good. We must of all of this because it is economically advantageous although it is, not because the laws of God command it although they do not because the people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.” Athletes of Special Olympics! Great, Courageous, Joyful, athletes of Special Olympics! Champion athletes of Special Olympics! Thank You! All of Ireland thanks you. The world thanks you! In the spirit of Special Olympics, let us remember the words written long ago: “...that faith, hope and love abide. But the greatest of these is love.”