Homecoming
We wrapped up the US-Belfast Business Mission at the Cultúrlann on Saturday night where our American visitors were feted by cultural leaders from the Falls and Shankill.
And it was a fitting way to end a whirlwind 72-hour visit which brought our guests face-to-face with the change-makers and community-builders of the transformed Belfast.
Representing the cream of Irish American political, business and cultural society, our delegates, who hailed from California and Connecticut, North Carolina and New York, DC and Cincinnati, and many other parts besides, witnessed a city brimming with optimism and confidence.
Whether in the Skainos centre in East Belfast, the Duncairn Cultural hub in North Belfast — where councillors from Sinn Féin and the DUP were among the welcome party – or the glorious Lyric Theatre in South Belfast, the message from Belfast was the same: the common ground of job creation and reconciliation is the only place on which our people wish to stand.
And resurgent transatlantic links can only help the healing and building process in Belfast.
Our American friends headed home on Sunday, with some specific requests in their notebooks: bring conferences and corporate meetings to Belfast, support the start-up companies who pitched to the mission by providing mentors, back the internship programme run by the US-NI Mentorship institution.
My Chaplain Rabbi David Singer says that in the Jewish tradition, those undertaking a trip are wished a safe journey and a safe return home. That’s a particularly apt blessing for our Irish American visitors for home for them lies on both sides of the Atlantic.
As first citizen, I commend each of our visitors as ambassadors for the future Belfast: Mark Tuohey III (DC), Reps Mike Cusick, Brian Kavanagh, Alec Brook-Krasny, Mike Fitzpatrick (all New York State), Mark Guilfoyle (Kentucky), Seamus McAteer (Silicon Valley), Shaun Kelly, (NYC), Leo Maguire (NJ), Suzanne Aquino, Vernonic Mullalley-Munoz, John J. Reilly ( all NYC), Maureen Bateman (Boston), Aidan Connolly, John Connorton, Bill and John Cox, John O’Donoghue ( all NYC), Russell Smith (North Carolina), and Karl May (California).
