ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY McALEESE AT SABHAL MÓR OSTAIG MONDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER, 2003
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY McALEESE AT SABHAL MÓR OSTAIG MONDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER, 2003
Mr. McKay
Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
A Chairde Gael
Sé onóir mór dom bheith anseo ar an oileán Scitheanach inniu. Guím dea-ghuí oraibh go léir.
I am very glad to have come ‘over the sea to Skye’ today at the invitation of my great friend and former colleague Bob Cormack, Principal not just of UHI Millennium Institute but leader of the greatest, the most inclusive adventure in education ever undertaken in the Highlands and Islands. Only a few short years ago as Pro-Vice Chancellors of the Queen’s University of Belfast, we worked together to bring access to high quality education to Northern Ireland’s marginalised regions. We believed then that we were building the basic foundations remote communities need to develop and reveal their own potential, to grow in prosperity, to experience full inclusion and to be true masters and mistresses of their own destinies. Bob’s passion for that work and his legendary love of his native Scotland brought him back home to be part of this hugely important endeavour. My journey to Skye, to this wonderful Gaelic College, brings me here as President of your next door neighbours, your Celtic cousins, brother and sister Gaels and it is with great pride that I accept this Honorary Fellowship and the honour of giving this year’s Annual Lecture.
Given the generosity of An t-Ard Ollamh, Tormod Macgilliosa’s citation I feel I should make it clear that although we are both MacGiolla Íosa’s we are not that I know of closely related to one another. It is recorded that the Irish MacMhuirichs served as bards to successive generations of the mighty clan Donald and for inspiration they were said:
“to shut their doors and windows for days at a time, lie on their backs with a stone upon their belly and plaids about their heads, and their eyes being covered, they pumped their brains for rhetorical encomium or panegyric”.
I sincerely hope that my namesake did not have to go to such extreme lengths in composing his citation but I think he beat the Mac Muirich’s hands down as I would expect of a MacGiolla Íosa.
As a speaker of Irish and in particular Ulster Irish there is something very special about being here in Colaiste Ghaidhlig na h-Alba.
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has a profound vocation and commitment to the Gaelic language of Scotland, to the communities who speak it and to securing for them the kind of educational opportunity which nurtures a culture, giving it confidence, extending its reach and ensuring its voice is listened to respectfully. Already you have forged remarkable and durable links between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland, and between them both and their Canadian cousins.
Your work has opened veins of fresh imagination and new ambition for Gaelic speakers
and for lovers of Gaelic culture everywhere and it is a pure joy to be here and to wish Beannacht Dé ar do cuid oibre. There is no doubt that you are already making us think differently, remember differently and plan differently. Sabhal Mòr Ostaig is of course the Scottish base of the Columba Initiative which seeks to build bridges between Ireland and Scotland and it was in that context that a new map of Scotland and Ireland was launched during the summer in Gleann Columcille in Donegal where I was attending a Gaeltacht summer school. That map alone challenges us to acknowledge the geographic closeness, the human connectedness which generations of men and women have established in fragile boats and sturdy airplanes, in intermarriage and shared lives.
This is a place which, since the time of legend, is resonant with the connections between our two Gaelic lands. The narrow sea between us has been the pathway which has linked the linguistic, cultural and political histories of our two peoples.
In this location of Skye, and especially here in Sabhal Mór Ostaig, it is particularly relevant to recall that this island has long been part of a wider Gaelic commonwealth which included, at its greatest extent, all of Ireland and almost all of Scotland. The enduring strength of this Gaelic culture derived from the spirit of St. Columba and generations of Celtic monks and it feared no border for they carried their message on into the heartland of Western Europe, amid the wreckage of the Roman Empire.
Their legacy to European culture and civilisation is well documented and its imprint extant throughout Europe to this day. It is a noble and rich heritage, deeply rooted in learning and as an enlarging European Union looks to a shared future it is worth focussing anew on that ancient shared heritage that this institution of Sabhal Mór Ostaig has a sacred stewardship of. You hold that heritage in trust, for your students, for the people of Scotland and Ireland and for all Europeans, especially those who have forgotten that since the time of Columba, Gaelic culture has lain close to the heart of European culture and that the Celtic world is considerably wider than many imagine or know.
Since that shared beginning, Ireland and Scotland have been subject, like all nations, to the pressures and forces of history. Vikings, Normans, Tudors and others all impacted powerfully on us, as did new ideas from Europe, notably the Reformation and the religious conflicts which followed it. They affected us in different ways, but the impact on our shared Gaelic culture was profound. Gaelic tradition, lore and language were pushed to the very edges of our lands. Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland suffered similar fates as authorities sought to enforce conformist laws in the flawed belief that good order flowed from uniformity.
The 17th century administration in Edinburgh held the view that ‘the Irish (Gaelic) language ... is one of the chief and principal causes of the continuance of barbarity and incivility amongst the inhabitants of the Isles and Highlands’. In Ireland around the same time the authorities sought to ensure ‘that the next generation will in tongue and heart, and every way else, become English’. In neither case were these policies entirely successful for the plant of identity is remarkably robust and long after it looks to be dead or dying it has a habit of reseeding itself - but the consequences were grim for the Gaelic community of Ireland and Scotland and their history took new twists and turns as a result.
My own birthplace Northern Ireland has of course its own particular set of connections
with Scotland of which my married name McAleese is one tiny fragment. The Plantation of Ulster brought many Lowland Scot migrants and with them came their different religion and language and crucially a body of radical thinking derived from earlier phases of Scottish history. Somewhat ironically in these days when Protestant is seen to be synonymous with Unionist and Catholic with Nationalist it was these new ideas which resonated so deeply with the egalitarian principles underpinning the American and French revolutions and which had a major impact on the evolution of Irish nationalism.
Some of the most prominent United Irishmen of the 1798 Rebellion were Presbyterians who had studied at Scottish universities. Today, hundreds of Northern Irish students also choose to study at Scottish Universities, evidence of the impact of our Scottish ancestors, my great-great grandfather among them, and evidence too of the extent to which many people in Northern Ireland remain not only conscious of their Scottish origins but find an easy cultural compatibility with the Scots.
That cultural compatibility is found too in the bonds of empathy between the two oppressed Gaelic communities each of which knows the awful pain of cultural eradication, of emigration, of poverty, of famine, of being made to feel worthless. Many of them met up again in Canada and on a visit to Nova Scotia some years ago I saw how they had bonded to create a Gaelic exiles heart for that beautiful Maritime province. In the words of the Canadian Boat Song - long popular in Scotland:
‘Fair these broad meads – these hoary woods are grand
But we are exiles from our father’s land.’ (The Canadian Boat Song)
The Great Famine in Ireland drove many to Scotland just as this country was about to experience the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent economic success of Central Scotland owes a debt to that reservoir of labour which helped consolidate the region’s status as the workshop of the British Empire. That pattern of migrant labour between Ireland and Scotland, which began at the time of the Great Famine and lasted up to modern times, has created an intricate web of intimate family connections between Ireland and Scotland, two places where to be kin matters a lot.
More recent developments now provide a fresh opportunity to build upon the strengths of this legacy and create a new phase in relations between Ireland and Scotland. The conclusion of the Good Friday Agreement, the devolution process in Scotland and Wales, and the transformation of the Irish economy provide a new and vibrant context for renewing and deepening the bond between us.
The Good Friday Agreement provides new scope for Scotland and Ireland to build on existing affinities and
forge new links through the joint commitment of both the British and Irish Governments to develop further “the unique relationship between their peoples” as friendly neighbours and partners within the European Union. The British-Irish Council established under the Agreement provides a framework within which Scottish and Irish political leaders can work and co-operate, in pursuit of common ends, and the participation of members of the Scottish Parliament in the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body has strengthened the network of positive and friendly links between parliamentary institutions of these islands.
Devolution in Scotland has reinforced this process. On the opening day of the Scottish Parliament, the late Donald Dewar sought to capture the solemn mood of the occasion and explain what devolution meant for Scotland when he said:
‘In this quiet moment of history, we might hear some echoes from the past; the past is part of us - part of every one of us - and we respect it but today there is a new voice in the land - the voice of a democratic parliament - a voice to shape Scotland, a voice for the future.’
We in Ireland are listening to this voice. We watch with great interest Scotland’s rediscovery of itself, of its Scottishness and in some small respect of its Irishness. The survival of a vibrant Gaelic culture in modern Scotland adds a distinctive note to the new voice of Scotland. That this culture is now embraced as part of a diverse Scottish identity is vital and enriching, a righteous source of pride here I know but you should know – a source of pride and hope in Ireland too.
Devolution and the Good Friday Agreement have together created a new spirit of co-operation and friendship between the different component parts of these islands. The establishment of the Irish Consulate General in Edinburgh in 1998 was the Government of Ireland’s response to the changed status of Scotland as a devolved entity with a stronger political profile. The Consulate is the embodiment of a commitment from Ireland to engage, politically, economically and culturally, with the emerging Scotland.
The remarkable transformation of the Irish economy in the past decade is well documented. It has generated new interest in Scotland in understanding how that transformation came about, stimulating a welcome debate amongst those who know and care for both nations. The Gaels of Ireland and Scotland have awakened to exciting opportunities for economic and social contacts.
The transformative power of education is one of the main reasons for the recent success of the Irish economy. It is not an overstatement to say that the decision of successive governments of all political colours to prioritise education as an area for investment has changed the course of recent Irish history, at the national and, importantly, at the individual level. Access to education not only broadens the individual’s horizons and options but crucially it also increases the community’s store of creativity, what some call the human equity, the skills and knowledge equity that all successful cultures and economies need. Educate only half your people and you can never realise more than half your potential. Educate all your people and watch as your country soars, as it flies on two wings. The widely dispersed colleges of this Institute, linked by new technologies, delivering education in a stimulating and imaginative way and enjoying broad local support are powerful engines of enterprise and renewal. We can see today around us that Sabhal Mór Ostaig has helped to transform Sleat, a depopulated island parish, into one of the more vibrant growth areas in the highlands while delivering to dispersed students previously unheard of educational opportunities. The transformative power of education is clearly at work here as in Ireland.
In a very real sense, the role of education in our present successful transition to a vibrant modern society echoes and indeed vindicates the reverence and value placed on learning and discovery by the Celtic monks. Their efforts produced a golden era of Celtic civilisation. Now we are challenged to produce our own golden era and I know the generations of students of Sabhal Mór Ostaig will have a central role to play in making Gaelic culture flourish anew in the 21st century.
Donald Dewar, in a famous lecture here in 2000, said “Developing links with Irish Gaels is an aspect we must not neglect. We should view the Gaeltacht not as something that is confined to Scotland’s shores but as an entity which stretches from the Butt of Lewis to the Dingle Peninsula in the South of Ireland”.
Part of developing links between Irish and Scottish Gaels is a joyful process of celebrating and rediscovering Scottish Gaelic culture. The Scottish Gaelic Arts Agency (Proiseact Nan Ealan) has produced a 21st century Book of Kells, An Leabhar Mór na Gaidhlig - The Great Book of Gaelic. It brings together the work of more than 200 visual artists, poets and calligraphers from Scotland and Ireland and having had the privilege of a preview in Virginia earlier this year, I can tell you it is a fascinating and exhilarating celebration of our different strands of Gaelic culture.
But even as we celebrate our ancient cultural and linguistic inheritance, as we take pride in its new, assertive manifestations, as we take heart from its surging self-confidence, its highly educated advocates, its renewed determination, we are also conscious of its vulnerability. It needs champions. It needs protestors and protagonists and to us falls that duty of care, that responsibility to ensure that this ancient culture with its wealth of music, of stories, of wisdom, humour, pathos and insight, of poems and passions, is easily accessible to each new generation, that it does not become simply a mausoleum, an archive of what was but becomes a cultivated garden, new plants, new gardeners, new genius, each generation adding its own layer creating a renewable source of cultural energy, bringing Scotland and Ireland more and more alive to their own possibilities, their own un-revealed potential. I would like to pay tribute to all those in Scotland and in Ireland and especially here, who work hard to do just that for cultural buoyancy and economic buoyancy are first cousins of one another, just as they are both the offspring of a confident and educated community.
I am very pleased that the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Aberdeen University, Professor Duncan Rice, joins Doctor Farquhar Macintosh and myself today in receiving an Honorary Fellowship. In November 1999 I had the great pleasure of visiting the University of Aberdeen to formally inaugurate the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. I said at that time that I believed that the work of the Institute would facilitate the building of new ties relevant to the future of our two islands in the 21st century and, in so doing, contribute to the restoration of interrupted friendships. I have followed the impressive range of activities of the Institute since then with considerable interest. The University of Aberdeen was also a founding member a decade ago of the Irish-Scottish Academic Initiative which has been very active in building a productive network of academic links between Ireland and Scotland, and I would also take this opportunity to salute their valuable work.
There is in both our countries today an exhilarating sense of new energy, new hope, new prospects for growth and revival, what Séamus Heaney calls ‘the music of things happening’. Political, economic and cultural developments in Scotland and Ireland are allowing a new generation to move forward to develop a new and more open engagement with each other. Just as the North and South of Ireland are getting to know each other better, Ireland North and South is getting to know Scotland better with many thousands of Irish students from both traditions in Ireland attending Scottish universities, building a store of personal contacts which will bind them always to Scotland and, hopefully, a few Scottish hearts to Ireland.
Today we are writing a new chapter in our shared history. We are a privileged and blessed generation - many of us the first of our clans to go to University, to enter the professions, to travel the world by choice rather than by force of economic circumstance or poverty. Our heads are up, our shoulders back - we see ourselves as equals of all and superiors to none. We believe in the fullest social inclusion. We dream of being the first generation to consign poverty rather than people to the margins of history. Our countries are reinventing themselves, exploring fresh thinking about national identity. We live unselfconsciously with multiple identities, Scottish/British/European; Irish/European, Irish/British/UlsterScots/European. We have begun to intuit that where all cultures are respected none is vulnerable.
Our emigrants abroad have shown us and their adopted countries what wonderful things can come from diversity. I meet them regularly - the world class Irish traditional musicians and dancers or Gaelic speakers who have never set foot in Ireland. They are Americans, Australians, Canadians, Germans, Czechs. Some have learnt Irish culture from their emigrant parents and grandparents; some haven’t even the rumour of a Gaelic gene and they learnt it all from their passionate neighbours. All have been enriched by it and are no less American, Canadian, Australian German or Czech - just more interesting, more rounded, more fulfilled human beings. Irish culture today is a series of wells dug in many places in the world - each of which draws from and adds to this thing we call Irishness. Scottish culture has the same story to tell but crucially no-one can tell the full story of Scottish culture without telling of Ireland and no-one can tell the full story of Irish culture without telling of Scotland. In any case the fullest story of both has yet to be written by this the most liberated, the most educated, the most unselfconscious of generations.
The future for both Ireland and Scotland holds huge promise as two educated generations with deep democratic and egalitarian instincts meet as equals and as kin, not by accident but by design, drawn by the potential of partnership, by curiosity about a shared past and ambition for a shared future. Could it be that the 21st century will be the time of homecoming for the Gaels when we experience profoundly and contentedly what Sorley MacLean so beautifully described as, ‘the quality of the Gael permanent’ ?
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.