Ambassador's remarks at gathering of diplomats for Budapest Pride
Budapest Pride Diplomatic Reception
Kedves Főolgármester, Kedves Barátaim,
Ahogy a lányaim mondják, Karácsony után minden lehangoló.
De megpróbálom, ami tőlem telik.
In the nine months I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to learn Magyarul.
Like the Rubik cube, like your politics, I fear I may never fully understand it.
But as the son of a folklorist, I’ve learned much from közmondások. Let me start with one.
‘‘Minden kezdet néhez.’’
When I was born, in 1983, homosexuality was still criminal in Ireland.
That year, brave activists - like you - took to Dublin’s cobbled streets for our first Pride, calling for change.
Five years later, a member of our Senate, David Norris, took that case against our state to the European Court of Human Rights. And won.
His lawyer, Mary Robinson, would become our President. Elected, as she put it, by the women of Ireland who ‘‘instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system’’.
Next year, we celebrate Budapest Pride’s 30th anniversary. And in Ireland we mark a decade since becoming the world’s first nation to embrace marriage equality by referendum.
Making grá - love - the law.
My country wore its best and brightest colours that marvellous Mayday.
But the road to the referendum began in that solemn Strasbourg courtroom.
It was carried on through decades of advocacy and activism.
Endless hours of campaigning and community-building.
Setbacks, stumbles, disappointments, and defeat.
Until, at last, what Seamus Heaney called ‘‘the tidal wave of justice’’ rose.
And all across Ireland, a simple truth was acknowledged:
That love is love. A szerelem az szerelem.
The arc of the moral universe is long, the great Martin Luther King observed. But it bends towards justice.
Since the Pink Picnic of 1992, the people of Budapest have been pressing to hasten its arc.
In my few months here, I’ve marvelled at the courage of your community. The energy of your activists. The resilience of independent journalists and civil society.
I’ve seen the intolerance some here project – and been discouraged by it. As I am by the hate I see still at home.
But I’ve been heartened too by the profound humanity of so many Hungarians.
Reflected in the rising public support for LGBTQI+ rights that Hattér and others document.
Ireland’s Embassy, like our nation, is small. Kicsi a bors, de erős.
We were humbled to be trusted by our colleagues to coordinate this year’s joint statement.
And alongside my dedicated Deputy, James Hagan, and policy officer, Nargiza Adilov, I’m grateful to the thirty four Embassies and nine institutes that signed with us. And others who engaged deeply in drafting.
Through this text, our international community stresses solidarity with yours.
We reaffirm our recognition of your fundamental rights.
And underline our concern at the discriminations you face – including from the state.
Ireland’s dark history of institutional abuse means that we recognise well how vital child protection is.
But the same experience teaches us that stigma cannot make children safer.
That targeting innocent minorities does not strengthen security.
That restricting exhibitions and shutting books will never open minds.
Kedves barataim,
Tina Kolos Orban knew these truths.
A founding member of Transvanilla here in Hungary, Tina was elected CEO of Transgender Equality Network Ireland two years ago.
Tireless in their advocacy, Tina’s loss was deeply mourned in Dublin, as in Budapest.
They may rest in Pride. But their legacy lives – in your energy and actions.
‘‘Három a Magyar igazság.’’
Well, like the leaves of our shamrock, the Irish justice is also three.
So, friends, tonight as we raise our glasses, tomorrow as we march down Andrassy, and, beneath the blazing Budapest sun, pass under the shade of those great statues at Hösök Tere, join me.
In honouring other heroes, smaller in stature, but no lesser in courage:
Tina Kolos Orban.
David Norris.
And all those here in Hungary, back in Ireland, and across the world, who devote their lives to defending our rights.
Barataim,
A final word.
I spent last weekend in Szombathely, celebrating Bloomsday, on which Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses is set.
The hero of that novel, the greatest in Irish literature, is Leopold Bloom, the son of a Szombathely Jew.
Humble, humorous, Bloom is revered for his humanity.
And in one famous passage, answers hate as it can only be answered.
Words I end with now.
“Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.... Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred.”
A szeretet, a gyűlölet ellentéte.
That, for me, is the spirit of Pride.
Köszönöm barataim. És boldog Pride mindenkinek!