Part of the Taoiseach's St Patrick's Day broadcast imagines a vision of an ideal Ireland.
In the year of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Gaelic League, an organisation that aimed to preserve and restore the Irish language and Irish culture. Part of de Valera's message to the nation of St Patrick's Day 1943 portrays a vision of an ideal Ireland. This is how he articulates it on radio.
"...The Ireland that we dreamed of would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit - a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose fire sides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that me should live..."
