'An amazing welcome - I have a lot more cousins than I realised’ - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
The excitement has been building in Aughagower for weeks and so it was to huge fanfare that the Canadian Prime Minister arrived in the village of his paternal grandparents.
Upon exiting the car, he immediately made a bee line to meet locals and immediately embraced.
Before meeting the line of dignitaries waiting to greet him on the way into St Patrick’s Church in Aughagower, he spent over five minutes meeting and greeting the people who had lined the street to welcome him.
Aughagower resident Kitty Foy was one of the people to meet him and told The Mayo News that he was a lovely man and his wife was a lovely lady.
“We are very proud of Aughagower and we have a very strong community spirit here. We have a lot of different groups in the community and we all work hard together to make the village what it is and we’re super proud he’s come here and it’s really nice for the Carey family that he has come here,” Marlene Foy told The Mayo News.
The Canadian Prime Minister also met local man Gabriel Joyce, who said it was a privilege to shake his hand. He described him as an “ordinary down to earth man and you would never think he was the Prime Minister of a major country.”
Amazing welcome
The Canadian Prime Minister hailed the “amazing welcome” he received in Aughagower and joked that he hadn’t realised how many cousins he had here.
He said it was an honour to be back in Aughagower.
The Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Mayo Minister Dara Calleary and Alan Dillon were on hand to greet the Canadian Prime Minister before he entered the church.
Mark Carney made a point of praising the work of Colette Sheridan and the Aughagower Community Council in making the visit happen.
Earlier on Sunday morning, he travelled to Westport House to meet the Irish President Catherine Connolly. He told reporters that the President had mentioned to his the meaning of Aughagower as the field of the spring, “the spring springs out all these relationships and ties over over the years and the centuries, and one of the things that is happening between Ireland and Canada, it's 180 years anniversary next year.”
Reflecting on the history of the village, he noted that one third of the people in this area were lost either to the famine or to emigration.
“Now, 180 years later, the flow is not one way. Prosperous Canada coming to Ireland, Ireland coming to Canada, everyone bonded together and bonded at the same time, so it's a very special time. It's an honor to be here.”
After revealing that he had last visited Aughagower in 2017, he went on to encourage the people gathered to go to Carney’s sweetshop and Scott’s pub, who had brought in “extra provisions” for the visit.
Tree planting
He took time to visit the unmarked graves of his great grandparents in Aughagower. He was accompanied by his wife Diana Fox Carney, his brother and sister as well as Fr Tod Nolan and local historian Harry Hughes.
Later as part of the visit, he planted an oak tree by the waterside in Aughagower. The tree will mark the return of the grandson of Robert and Nora Carey to their homeplace and act as a nice reminder of the celebrations in the village that day.
The Canadian Prime Minister was presented with a framed copy of a specially written poem in his honour by Aughagower poet, Ger Reidy.
The poem entitled, Aughagower, was published by The Mayo News last week.
Mayo County Council will honour the Canadian Prime Minister with the highest honour it can bestow at a civic reception this evening in Westport Town Hall.