ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE LAUNCH OF “PASSING ON THE TORCH”
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE LAUNCH OF “PASSING ON THE TORCH: A HISTORY OF MARY IMMACULATE COLLEGE
Firstly, I’d like to thank you, Bishop Murray – for you very warm words of welcome – to this very fitting tribute to one hundred years of the Mary Immaculate Training College here in Limerick – a celebration of the work of generations – in equipping young women with the knowledge and skills to take up the profession of teaching – a profession which carries profound responsibility – a vocation really – to work in the forming of young minds.
I know you are marking the centenary with a full programme of activities - like the Spring Series of public lectures – covering many interesting topics relevant to education and educators today. The book we are launching – gives us an opportunity to look back at one of the most interesting periods in our history – a century which has seen two world wars - the establishment of an independent Irish State – severe economic depression on a world-wide scale – and the more recent years of prosperity – a prosperity which has been largely facilitated by an education system - of which Mary Immaculate College has been an important component.
The book – which has obviously been very carefully researched and compiled by Sr. Loreto O’Connor – charts the course of the school from the germ of the idea itself – through its construction – the changes arising from independence – and the slow recovery from the turmoil of war and economic depression - all the time putting it into its historical context – making it possible to see the influences of history and change in Irish society on the work of the College. As Bishop Murray puts it in his foreword “It has lived through and been shaped by historical upheavals, changes in Irish society, developments in education”.
The secret of any institution’s success has to be its ability to meet change and to adapt to it – to look for opportunity in challenge – and to move forward. As the great innovator of Irish Education, Cardinal john Henry Newman put – “to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”. Equipping people to be capable of adapting to new challenges and changing circumstances, to harness the resources that are or could be at their disposal – that is the key role of our educational and training institutions. And to meet that educational challenge also requires a frame of mind and attitude that is always ready to address new requirements.
Reading Sr. Loreto’s book – as it charts the course of the history of this great institution – you can see how change impacted on the curriculum and scope of training at the College – and how, in more recent years – with the great third level ‘revolution’ that has taken place in Ireland- the College - through its links with the University of Limerick – has been able – and indeed willing – to move with the times – to continue to meet the new demands for qualified teachers.
Ireland is enjoying unprecedented prosperity, and has blossomed into a modern liberal democracy, holding its place amongst the traditional ‘greats’, fully participating in the European Union. But that phenomenal success - particularly over the last decade - has its roots in earlier decades - when far-seeing Governments - and visionaries in the 3rd level education sector - committed the necessary resources to make our education system the great asset that it is today. The tremendous response of the 3rd level institutions, in meeting the rising demand for higher education, has been fundamental to that success.
Just the other day, I had the great privilege of conferring the ‘Saoi’ on Seamus Heaney – following his election by his peers in Aosdána. Seamus is a product of that great educational ‘emancipation’ that took place on this island after the last war – something which he describes in his own eloquent way in his poem “From the Canton of Expectation”, - a poem which I find so inspiring – “... suddenly this change of mood.
Books open in the newly wired kitchens.
Young heads that might have dozed a life away against the flanks of milking cows were busy
paving and pencilling their first causeways
across the prescribed texts. . .
Our faith in winning by enduring most,
they made anathema, intelligences
brightened and unmannerly as crowbars."
What is learnt in childhood is engraved on stone. At Mary Immaculate College you have been giving the engravers their skills – equipping them to craft and shape posterity – shedding the light on their pathway. The College motto sums it up – “Briathar Dé mo Lóchrann” – “The Word of God, a lamp for my steps”. In congratulating Sr. Loreto on an excellent book – a book which will be a great addition to the recorded history of Limerick and Ireland – and a great insight in to the changes in society over the last century - I also want to pay tribute to everybody who is and has been associated with Mary Immaculate College – and to wish you well as the decades ahead bring even greater changes. I know that the third level institutions have been central to the great ‘revolution’ that took place in Irish society as it moved from a rural based economy to a modern prosperous State. For the future, the colleges are, once again, the key to the opening of minds to the new perspectives that lie ahead.