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Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, and Minister for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton today led a national handshake in Croke Park, as part of Ireland’s EU Presidency celebrations of Europe Day. They were participating in a group handshake with a team of young GAA players from community clubs around Ireland, whose families originated in other European countries. The young players, sporting a specially designed GAA Europe strip were welcomed to Croke Park by GAA President Liam Ó Néill and Director General Páraic Duffy.

The hand shake was replicated in national schools around the country where pupils wished each other a ‘Happy Europe Day’, acknowledging the diversity and solidarity that exists between them as EU citizens.

The handshake symbolises the day that then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman extended the hand of friendship to old enemy Germany, to put war behind them and to forge a peaceful continent. That was the 9th May 1950 which to this day is celebrated as Europe Day. The Schuman Declaration proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, in the wake of the devastation caused by World War 2. It proposed the pooling of the production of coal and steel in order to raise standards of living and, in the words of the Declaration, to make war between historic rivals France and Germany "not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible". It was the genesis of the European Union of 27 countries which we know today.

The Taoiseach said:

This handshake today involving young Irish people whose families have come from many parts of Europe and beyond underlines why we celebrate Europe Day. It is a day to remember that there is so much that binds us in the European Union and that our futures are inextricably linked.

Read the full press release

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