Canadian Prime Minister Carney Visits Ancestral Irish Village Before G7 Summit
Prime Minister Carney's Visit to Ireland and Its Significance
By Graham Fahy
Celebrating Irish Heritage
AUGHAGOWER, Ireland, June 14 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday met distant cousins in his grandparents' home village in the west of Ireland on a visit to celebrate his Irish roots while urging closer cooperation in the wake of a global geopolitical "rupture".
Family History and Connections
Grandfather Robert Carney and Nora Moran emigrated to Canada in 1925 and married in Vancouver, where Robert got a job in the Canadian Pacific Railway Police and later joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Carney's father was born in 1933 and would later become a professor at the University of Alberta.
Reunion with Relatives
"I have a lot more cousins than I realised," Carney quipped to reporters after attending mass in the Catholic church in Aughagower village, where his grandparents were born. Carney also visited the family grave and planted a tree.
Political Context and Statements
Carney, who was visiting Ireland on the way to the G7 meeting in France, on Saturday said countries like Canada and Ireland needed to join in a "dense web of connections ... ad hoc coalitions" to survive and thrive in a world where the post-Cold War rules-based order is breaking down.
Address at Trinity College Dublin
"Ireland and Canada are navigating a global rupture, not a quiet transition," he told students at Trinity College Dublin.
"I suggest that amidst this change, amidst this disruption, Canada, Ireland, and Europe can be pivotal, powerful, and purposeful, a force for good," he said.
Strengthening International Relationships
Irish prime minister Micheal Martin, whose country takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1, told reporters his government would work to "put flesh on the bone of an enhanced European Union-Canadian relationship."
(Reporting by Graham Fahy; Editing by Conor Humphries)
