She began an official visit to New York City for several days, on 16 May 2010. She began by appearing at an "Irish Voice" event in honour of life science. She then addressed business leaders at the New York Stock Exchange to say Irish people were "as mad as hell" over the Irish banking crisis, and opened the "An Gorta Mór" (Great Famine) exhibition with a speech promising that Ireland's foreign policy focussed on global hunger. She was also present at St. Patrick's Cathedral for a Famine mass and went to the Battery Park City's Irish Hunger Memorial to see the official New York commemoration of the 19th-century Irish Famine. On 22 May 2010, she delivered the keynote address at Fordham University's 165th Commencement.