The President, Mrs McAleese, spoke yesterday of Ireland's long links with Argentina when she paid a courtesy call on President Nestor Kirchner on her arrival yesterday for the start of a three- day official visit.
Mrs McAleese's call to the Casa Rosada was her first engagement on arriving in South America. The President and her husband, Dr Martin McAleese, will also visit Chile and Brazil.
Last night the President attended a reception hosted by Ambassador Paula Slattery where guests were entertained by Anuna.
Official contacts between Ireland and Argentina dated back to 1921, Mrs McAleese said, when Mr Eamon de Valera's Provisional Government sent Mr Laurence Ginnell as special envoy to seek support for Irish independence.
Formal diplomatic relations were established in 1947 and a resident mission set up the following year, making the embassy in Buenos Aires one of Ireland's oldest.
But the friendship, Mrs McAleese told her audience of about 350 Irish Argentinians and Irish expats, dated back to when Irishmen and women arrived by emigrant ship and established the largest and most successful Irish community in the non- English-speaking world.
She believed that when the descendants of these 19th- century emigrants spoke English one could still hear the echoes of Westmeath and Longford.
Mrs McAleese paid tribute to those passionately committed to the preservation and promotion of Irish culture and spoke of Admiral William Brown from Mayo, who founded the Argentinian navy, and Father Anthony Fahy, who helped the early settlers.
"Those who came from Ireland to Argentina came from a country ravaged by famine, poverty, war, oppression and hopelessness.
"They came in search of opportunity and though many never knew fame or fortune, they and their children climbed their way to the top of every sphere of civic life by dint of sheer hard work and their own genius."
The President said the Argentine poet and writer, Jorge Luis Borges, once described Ireland as "that oppressed yet stubborn country". Thankfully, she said, the description no longer fitted.