JUNIOR FOREIGN MINISTER Joe Costello has spoken of the “very moving” memorial to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks after visiting the World Trade Center site yesterday.
Costello was given a guided tour of the site by Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, on the 11th anniversary of the 2011 attacks in which 2,976 people were killed.
The minister was led around the former site of the WTC’s ‘Twin Towers’, at which two reflection pools – based in the former footprints of each of the former towers – were opened last year.
“To see the names of the almost 3,000 innocent victims brings home the enormous loss and sadness caused to so many families from so many nations, including our own,” Costello said.
The minister added that seeing Irish surnames on the monument reminded him “of the huge price paid by the Irish of New York, especially those in the emergency services who gave up their lives to try to save others.
“On behalf of the people of Ireland I honour their memory today,” he said.
Yesterday’s commemorations at New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were largely apolitical, as both main parties sought to divorce the day’s events from the forthcoming presidential election.
Though most local newspapers covered anniversary events to some degree, both the broadsheet New York Times and tabloid New York Post opted against putting any 9/11 content on their front pages – explaining that they had chosen instead to allow readers to revisit the events at their own pace.
Friends and relatives of the September 11 victims attend a ceremony marking the 11th anniversary of the attacks at the World Trade Center site. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
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