Martin Cullen

Katrina Parsons, pictured here between her parents, won a citywide St. Patrick's Day essay contest and presented her essay to the chamber. She also earned a $1,000 prize for her work.

An Irish cabinet member joined Gov. Sonny Perdue in addressing the Ireland Chamber of Commerce in the United States, Atlanta Chapter at the World Trade Center Atlanta, during the organization’s sixth annual breakfast celebrating St. Patrick’s Day March 15.

Martin Cullen, Ireland’s minister for social and family affairs, stressed the similarly developing economies in the two regions.

“It’s been 20 years since I last set foot in Atlanta and it’s a very different city, just as Ireland is very different,” he said.  “It’s great to come back at a time of mutual development.”

Mr. Cullen credited American investment with helping kick-start Ireland’s economic growth.  He also said that Irish investment in the U.S. is beginning to keep pace, as American companies employ 93,000 people in Ireland to the 88,000 employees of Irish companies in the U.S.

The largest of these is Atlanta-based construction materials producer Oldcastle Inc., the North American subsidiary of Dublin, Ireland-based construction group CRH Plc., which has more than 50,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada.

He said that peace in Northern Ireland allowed people in both regions to market a “holistic Ireland,” and that government officials are looking forward to hosting a U.S. trade mission to Belfast, Northern Ireland, May 8-9.

Mr. Cullen’s visit is part of a St. Patrick’s Day weekend blitz of Irish government officials to the U.S.  Prime Minister Bertie Ahern is to travel to Washington to take part in celebrations there and Billy Kelleher, minister of state for labor affairs, is to visit Savannah.  Other officials will visit major U.S. cities including Chicago, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.

The delegations represent efforts by the Irish government to reach out to its largest trading partner and the widespread Irish-American population.

Mr. Perdue noted the similarities between the Irish and Georgian economies in transitioning from agriculture to industry.  He also said that Ireland could provide a model for other European Union countries trying to strengthen their economies.

“Ireland is becoming the gateway to the E.U.,” he said.  “Some of the E.U.’s economic policies had grown stale … Ireland has demonstrated that there is a better way to revitalize an economy” by attracting foreign investment and sending successful homegrown businesses overseas.

The chamber breakfast also featured the winner of the fourth annual St. Patrick’s essay contest, open to Atlanta-area high school students who submit papers on the meaning of St. Patrick’s Day.

Katrina Parsons, a student at the Atlanta Girls School on Northside Parkway, won the 2008 contest and presented her paper, “St. Patrick’s Day: A Celebration in the City Too Busy to Hate,” to the chamber.

The contest, run by James Flanagan, a professor and director of the W.B. Yeats Foundation at Emory University, has a $1,000 prize and Ms. Parsons will be featured during Atlanta’s March 15 St. Patrick’s Day parade.

This year’s parade is the 127th since its inception in 1858.  Organizers have scheduled a weekend of events at Underground Atlanta that began March 14 and end on St. Patrick’s actual feast day, March 17.

Event sponsors include Oldcastle, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. and the re-opened Fadó Irish Pub & Restaurant, an Atlanta original that now has branches in 14 cities.