Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Hosts Breakfast to Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Gracie Mansion. I am proud to announce the first public event we've had here as I stand before you as the new mayor of our city. So, before I begin, I would like to acknowledge a few members of our administration. We have our first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, who's here with us. We have Ali Najmi, the chair of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary. We have our Commissioner of International Affairs, Ana Maria Archila. We have with us City Council woman Virginia Maloney. And our esteemed former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. We have our former Council Member, Danny Dromm. And we also have my former colleague, former Assembly Member Mike Cusick. It is truly such a pleasure to mark this holiday with each of you. And it is such a privilege to be joined by a leader who I know we all, as well as millions more in Ireland and countless others across the world, have looked to for leadership and for wisdom, who has made solidarity into a living, breathing thing. Please join me in a round of applause for former President Mary Robinson. Thank you for being here, truly. As we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, I return to the words of the Apostle of Ireland himself, a man who arrived in Ireland in captivity. In the 5th century in what we now know as Ireland, a British warlord named Coroticus had laid waste to the countryside. St. Patrick implored the soldiers responsible to stop. Overcome by grief, he wrote, all I can do is what is written, “Weep with those who weep.” To weep with those who weep is no small act. It is a choice, one that often requires sacrifice, a subjugation of the self, [and] a material exertion. I can think of no better way to describe President Robinson's leadership, the solidarity the people of Ireland have shown with the downtrodden and the forgotten, and the legacy of Irish New Yorkers. I want to begin with President Robinson, the first woman to serve as president of Ireland. There is a weight that comes with being first, a weight of expectation, a weight of blazing a path without precedent, [and] a weight of symbolism, which can so often become all-encompassing. And yet, President Robinson's legacy is far more than simply a symbolic one. It is a legacy of action, it is a legacy of justice, [and] it is a legacy of measurable, lasting change. I think of the humanity President Robinson extended towards the LGBTQIA+ community when she decriminalized homosexuality in Ireland. It was an act of immense leadership, one that demanded vast political will. I think of her lifetime commitment to climate action, which you may see here embodied by the pin that she has now put on me, and her refusal to flinch from how the fight against the climate crisis is fundamentally a fight for justice. And I think of so much more — how she transformed the lives of so many Irish women at every stage of her career, how she advocated for workers, [and] how she fought for reproductive rights, and I think also of how she stood steadfast alongside the people of Palestine. I say this as over the past few years, as we've witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many. For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new, for Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet former President Robinson has never been silent, not when she was president, not when she was High Commissioner for Human Rights, and not in the decades since. As she once said, commemoration is a moral act. Her solidarity is many things — unwavering, sincere and chief among them, Irish. Irish solidarity is no coincidence. Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long? The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation, and of discrimination. As we know, it was on Irish soil that the British Empire developed their colonial project. So much of the exploitation later imposed elsewhere across the world was first homed in the plantations of Ireland. And yet when I think of the Irish, I do not think first of oppression. I think of resistance. I think of unity. I think of corned beef and 96-minute Troy Parrott goals, and the Pogues' Fairytale of New York. Above all, I think of that solidarity. When Irish immigrants arrived in New York City, they were so often barred from employment and from housing. Signs plastered across storefronts read, “Help Wanted. No Irish Need Apply.” And yet while Irish New Yorkers were, in the poetry of Eavan Boland, long suffering in the bruised-colored dusk of the new world, [and] they did not grow discouraged. They banded together. They organized. They formed labor movements that endure to this day. It was Irish hands that helped to build so much of the city that we recognize today. The skyscrapers that pierce clouds, the tunnels carved through bedrock. And we can see an example of that legacy in the incredible labor leaders that we have with us today, both in this room and beyond this room. And as we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day together, and as I belatedly acknowledge our State Senator Brian Kavanagh as well, we celebrate not just a day of revelry, but a day of continued obligation to one another, to a better world, [and] to all those who still — weep. And I want to thank President Robinson again for joining us. I want to thank the people of Ireland who have taken a past of suffering and used it to fight for a future of justice. And I want to thank every Irish New Yorker for helping make this city into what it is today. Now, it is my honor to present a proclamation honoring President Robinson. Thank you.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceCan we hear it once more, the former president and minister. Truly. So, I want to say once again, thank you to each and every person for being here. There's no one else that I would rather not be able to have a breakfast with, as it's Ramadan. But it is truly a pleasure to have all of you here and to know that this too is your home, not just in terms of Gracie Mansion, but also in terms of New York City. The city is all the better for the ocean being made into a bridge, and we are so thankful for the contributions of Irish Americans, not just to the past of this city [and] the present of this city, but frankly to the future of this city. And it is a privilege to be able to look across to the people of Ireland and to find inspiration in what that future could look like. So, thank you to an incredible leader. Thank you to everyone for being here. I will come around and just say thank you [from] myself to each and every one of you. Thank you. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Hosts Breakfast to Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day.