Ireland welcomes the new EU members
In the first half of 2004, the Presidency of the Council of the EU was held by Ireland, which organised the Day of Welcomes on 1 May 2004 in Phoenix Park, Dublin, for the new Member States. The late Irish Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney wrote a poem for the occasion, entitled Beacons at Bealtaine, which he also read at the event.
Ireland has chosen to mark the 20th anniversary of the EU's "big-bang" enlargement with an important cultural gesture as well – Heaney's poem has been translated into all ten languages of the new EU Member States.
The Embassy of Ireland in Slovenia provided a Slovenian version of the poem Beacons at Bealtaine (in Slovenian Bealtainski svetilniki), translated by Nada Grošelj. A video of the recitation in Slovenian was also made for this occasion.
You can read more about the background to the poem and the poem itself in the original and in translation in the leaflet.
Fireworks in celebration of Slovenia's accession to the EU. | Author BoBo, Source: MZEZ