President Mary McAleese has started an eight-day visit to the United States by launching an Irish studies programme at the University of Montana and invoking Irish cultural ties with Native Americans.
Launching the programme, which is run by Prof Traolach Ó Riordan in co-operation with University College Cork, Mrs McAleese said that research into the relationship between early Irish immigrants and Native Americans had opened a new perspective on the Irish in the US.
"We know now that the opening lines of Montana's Irish history may have been written by Irish-speaking trappers who lived and worked among Native Americans. That relationship gave rise to a new community whose culture of music and dance is unmistakably Gaelic. I believe that a delegation from University College Cork visited this campus last year and were spellbound by the similarities between Irish and Meti music," she said.
"Such facts are little known in Ireland and it is heartening to know that the complex relationship between the Irish and the Native American people, all those historic blind spots, are the subject of ongoing research at this university - research which will fill out the Irish/American narrative - giving us access to a fuller, more comprehensive picture and understanding."
Mrs McAleese is the first Irish President to visit Montana, which has one of the oldest Irish communities in the US. Two of her predecessors - Douglas Hyde in 1906 and Éamon de Valera in 1919 - visited the state before becoming president.
In remarks that gained a resonance from the US's current debate on immigration, Mrs McAleese spoke of the aspirations of the earliest Irish immigrants to Montana. "They brought their hopes, heritage, music, history and these things they wove into the story and heritage of Montana, creating bonds of kinship and affection which we in our turn build on today.
"I like to think that the suffering they endured is in some way vindicated in the success of their children's children and in this programme of Irish studies which we are inaugurating today."
Mrs McAleese travels today to Butte, Montana, a copper-mining town that was settled in the 19th century overwhelmingly by immigrants from the Beara peninsula in west Cork. Many of the 30,000 inhabitants of Butte claim Irish ancestry and the town hosts an annual festival of Irish culture.
Later this week, the President will visit Denver, Colorado, before travelling to South Bend, Indiana, where she will give the commencement address at Notre Dame University.