Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar addressed an audience at the JFK Library in Dorchester on Monday, March 11. Photo courtesy JFK Library.

St. Patrick’s Day is Sunday, but in Greater Boston the annual celebration of Ireland’s patron saint is a month-long affair with dinners, brunches, galas, Masses, festivals, and private parties that dominate the social calendar in a state where one in five people claim Irish ancestry. Boston isn’t the only American city with an outsized Irish identity, but it remains —arguably— the most inluential one. The US Ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin— is a Brockton native. President Biden’s hand-picked special envoy to Northern Ireland is former Congressman Joseph Kennedy III.

And so, it was not a surprise to see that Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar made Boston his first stop on a week-long visit to the United States this week. On Monday evening, the Taoiseach—the Irish word for his office—addressed a dinner crowd of about 400 guests at Dorchester’s John F. Kennedy Library.

In his speech, Varadkar made all the customary references to President Kennedy’s family ties to Ireland and the Kennedys’ distinct role in advancing peace on the island of Ireland. But the Taoiseach also used his platform to telegraph the urgent message he intends to deliver later this week when he visits with President Biden and Congressional leaders.

Varadkar recalled a speech that JFK delivered to a joint session of Ireland’s assembly in 1963, a few months before his assassination, in which the American president urged Ireland to be “the protector of the weak and the voice of the small.”

“We’re mindful of the challenge he set for us, to speak out against injustice without fear or favor,” Varadkar said before pivoting to the most urgent matter facing Ireland and other European leaders: the ongoing war of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

“As a country with our own history of being invaded, we stand publicly and openly against Russia’s unprovoked and imperious invasion of Ukraine,” said Varadkar, who described it as a “battle between freedom and tyranny.”

The Irish PM said he planned to thank President Biden personally for the United States’ leadership in aiding Ukraine. But in remarks that seemed squarely aimed at Republicans who continue to resist new aid packages, he said: “Some would like to ignore the conflict, but fail to realize this conflict will ignore them. Ukraine is facing an adversary that will not stop there… If Ukraine falls, so too will a shadow fall across Europe.”

Next, Varadkar renewed his previous call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, a step beyond the Biden administration’s current position for a six-week, temporary ceasefire that our president articulated during last week’s State of the Union address.

Varadkar advised: “From our own painful history in Ireland, we know the ceasefire does not mean surrender. Nor does it necessarily mean peace. And it certainly doesn’t mean weakness. A ceasefire doesn’t mean forgiveness either, but it does present a glimmer of hope.”

And he warned: “If we’re not consistent, if we do not see and respect the equal value of a child of Israel and a child of Palestine, then the rest of the world, particularly the global south, which after all is most of the world, will not listen to us when we call on them to stand by the rules and institutions that are the bedrock of the civilized world.”

Of all the speeches and toasts that will be offered in this St. Patrick’s season, it’s likely that the most meaningful one will be that offered by Ireland’s leader, overlooking Dorchester Bay.