President Michael D Higgins said during the visit by Cuban president to Ireland in October 2019.

“Irish and Cuban people have in common a proud sense of their national identity, a passion for freedom and, in the past, both of our people have the shared experience of living in the shadow of a powerful neighbour. We are two island nations that carry our marks of that proximity and we carry the legacy of colonisation. We both have had to wrestle freedom from the grip of empires in order to achieve independence. This shared history has led Irish and Cuban people to easily forge many bonds of empathy and imagination, and to exchange stories, dreams and aspirations of freedom.”