President Mary McAleese yesterday paid tribute to those members of the Hungarian community who left their country in "horrendous circumstances and made a life here in uncertain times".
Speaking at an event in the Hungarian embassy, held to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising, Mrs McAleese said she could remember "kneeling to pray for Hungary at my mother's insistence during those dark days fifty years ago".
The Hungarian Revolution, which began on October 23rd, 1956, was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the totalitarian communist government of Hungary and its Soviet imposed policies. Though fighting had almost stopped by the end of October and the Politburo agreed a ceasefire, on November 4th, 1956, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest killing thousands of civilians. An estimated 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees, over 500 of which came to Ireland.
Mrs McAleese spoke of the pain and loneliness those refugees must have felt in the "grim" Ireland of the 1950s, and how they had still "to get out there and make a new life".
