Skip to content
Home » Transcript of EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar’s Speech In Dublin, Ireland (Mar 6, 2025)

Transcript of EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar’s Speech In Dublin, Ireland (Mar 6, 2025)

Read the full transcript of India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s speech during a community interaction in Dublin, Ireland, March 6, 2025.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Opening Remarks

[DR. S. JAISHANKAR:] Namaskar. Namaskar. Good evening. Good to see you all. Ambassador, friends, it’s been a long day, but I can’t think of a better way of ending the day than to be with all of you.

I want to begin by thanking you and also saying it took a little while for a foreign minister to come. But now that I’m here, I’m trying to make the most of it. But I really want to thank you, and I will tell you why. All over the world, it’s very normal that wherever you go, people say good things about Indians. I always tell others that when we speak of the image of India, others don’t look at a map to have an image of India.

They remember a person. They remember somebody they know, some experience with them, a face, a relationship, a feeling. And while I have experienced this across the world, I must tell you, I felt it very, very strongly so I can fully understand what the ambassador was trying to convey.

Meetings with Irish Leadership

I’ve just come a little while ago from a meeting with President Higgins. Earlier in the day, I met a collection of people, including the former Taoiseach Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, some of the ministers in the cabinet. Tomorrow, I will be meeting my counterpart, Prime Minister Simon Harris.

But in all the meetings, for me, it was a great sense of pride. They brought up the Indian community. They mentioned the contribution of the Indian community. Exactly what the ambassador said, that the professionals out here, the people who have contributed to not just development, but especially the health sector in this country.

So I want to really sincerely give a very big thank you on behalf of the nation because you make my job and my life easier.

India-Ireland Relations

Now, when you prepare for a visit, you take your job reasonably seriously, professionally. They give you a lot of folders. They will say, these are the problems. I must say with Ireland, the preparations were very easy. There were no big problems. There were mostly good things which they told me.

I found trade was reasonably good, about sixteen billion dollars at least, maybe higher. The Indian community, I’m now told, is almost a lakh, that the number of students is about, I think, thirteen thousand was the new number that they gave me. And with Ireland itself, we have a very good tradition, and a very old tradition.

In fact, before I came here, my immediate engagement was in the university college. And I was telling the students there that if any of you check Wikipedia, just go into Wikipedia, do “India-Ireland relations.” Something very interesting pops up. It’s a 1920 lecture given by the person who became president of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, in New York, making a case why India should be free.

When we look at this part of the world, Europe, there was no other country, no other political force, political leadership, that took that position at that time. In fact, most of this region largely stood with the colonial power. And Ireland, in many ways, was an exception because it was itself occupied. So we’ve always had this very special connection with Ireland.

Historical and Cultural Connections

When we look at how the Irish themselves have built the nation, their freedom struggle, how they have revived their culture because the colonial period, you know, colonial power tries to erase the culture. In fact, there is so much which is actually worth knowing, worth learning, worth thinking about.

And so even though I had official meetings, I still did two things today, which I’m sure many of you have done, but if you have not, I would recommend it. One, I went to the General Post Office, which was the center of the Easter Rising in 1916. But I would say in the twentieth century, if there was one symbol anywhere in the world of people rising up against the colonial power, the most potent one was the General Post Office in Dublin. And as a country which fought for its own freedom, for me, that was an important first stop.

And then somewhere in my programs, I found time for one other thing, which I had promised myself I would do, which is to visit a site or a place, which for them in terms of their cultural revival was very important. Because here is a country whose actual language was under threat, not just culture. And I went to see the Book of Kells, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site here.

Bilateral Partnership

I do want to tell you that for us, Ireland has been a very good partner. There are people with whom I have worked with multiple ministers including the current one and many of his predecessors. So for all of you, do be assured. In fact, make the most of this relationship because I think we think well of this country, they think well of us. We work together in multiple forums. In fact, our soldiers are even deployed together in Lebanon in the UN force.

So there is a lot going for us here and I’m very sure with all the contributions and everything that you do, it will only get better. Now having said that, I also want you to know one other important development, which is that Ireland, as part of the European Union, will naturally get many of the advantages which will happen when our relationship with the European Union will improve.

India-EU Relations

We just last week had something unprecedented in our history, which was there is a new European Commission. So the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and twenty-one out of the twenty-seven commissioners came together to India.