INAUGURAL CORMAC McANALLEN LEADERSHIP LECTURE DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ST CATHERINE’S COLLEGE
INAUGURAL CORMAC McANALLEN LEADERSHIP LECTURE DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ST CATHERINE’S COLLEGE, ARMAGH, TUESDAY 12TH APRIL
Dia dhíbh a chairde tráthnóna. Tá gliondar orm bheith anseo libh ar an ócáid speisialta seo agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh agus an fháilte.
Thank you for your very warm welcome. My thanks also to Principal Margaret Martin for her kind invitation to return to St. Catherine’s to deliver the inaugural Cormac McAnallen Leadership Lecture. For many years now, I have been a regular visitor to this great school, going back to my days at the Queen’s University in Belfast when I came here from time to time to talk to Sixth Formers. If I’m right Margaret, the last time I was here was in September 2001 for the celebrations to mark 150 years of teaching by the Society of the Sacred Heart here in Armagh. Margaret and I go back to our own school days – more years ago perhaps than either of us wish to remember or, for that matter, are prepared to admit!
St. Catherine’s has educated many thousands of girls through the years, preparing them for adulthood and life’s challenges and you will forgive me for reiterating what I said about this school on my last visit - that under the dynamic leadership of Margaret, St. Catherine’s has, by sheer effort, won for itself a reputation as a centre of academic excellence and a true champion of equality of opportunity. Here school life revolves not just around a list of subjects but around an ethos and a value system which will be richly at work in lives long after the tuiseal ginideach or past subjunctive or Boyle’s Law are forgotten. It is a place that has a true leader at its helm in Margaret Martin, employed another true leader in Cormac McAnallen and cultivates leadership and other life-skills and qualities in its students. We recognise that education has a huge part to play in the development not just of well-rounded individuals but also of healthy communities. On both parts of this island, many who are involved in the world of education, including St. Catherine’s, have been champions of cross-community and cross-border relationships, firm advocates of respect for diversity and creators of opportunity for people to bridge historic divides – those who, as Ulster poet John Hewitt put it, “build to fill the centuries arrears”. You are respected and looked to for leadership and though leadership costs, demands and tests, here in St Catherine’s the courage for leadership has always been found in abundance.
There is something about the name Cormac McAnallen that leads naturally and seamlessly into reflections on leadership. You who knew him well know how directly his wonderful human qualities spoke to and inspired your hearts and minds. I feel a great honour to have been asked to deliver this lecture in the presence of such a distinguished audience including his family and especially his parents, Bridget and Brendan McAnallen. In paying tribute to their beloved son we also pay tribute to the home in which his character and values were first nurtured.
Cormac was revered throughout the country as one of the greatest Gaelic footballers of his time. It is hard to believe that one who died so young had already packed into his short life every possible honour in the game. It has been said that he has “left behind much, much more than an empty jersey hanging on a peg.” For Cormac left the gifts of exemplary leadership, of passion for life itself, of discipline, sacrifice and courage, of generosity and service to others. Here was a life built on good choices, built in fact on goodness itself. Every honour won came about because he accepted the possibility of failure and did everything he possibly could to transcend it. He knew great days and he knew dreadful days and when the latter came there was no skulking away from them, no self-pity but the revelation of the true leader whose vision stays true and whose determination never falters no matter how tough things get.
We think of the many who clung to his colossal strength and faith after the Omagh bombing. We remember how, at 17, he willingly shouldered the responsibility of helping his colleagues come to terms with the tragic death of Paul McGirr, a promising young footballer who died after suffering a freak injury while playing for Tyrone in an Ulster Minor championship game at Omagh. We would all hope that our young people could postpone their acquaintance with death and loss as long as possible but life is capricious and cruel at times and confronts them with awesome challenges from which come the deepening, the softening, the hardening that prepares us for today and tomorrow with all their unevenly distributed joys and sorrows. Today, there are representatives here from Armagh Royal School which suffered a double tragedy in little more than a year, with firstly, the sudden death of John McCall in similar circumstances to that of Cormac. John was playing rugby for Ireland in South Africa in March 2004 when he died. And Todd Graham died in a tragic accident in Zambia in July last. Each tragically young death will have cast a shadow of grief on all who loved and knew them but I hope too that each death will have galvanised their friends to use the breath in their bodies, the skills and talents they have, the opportunities life presents to them, to build good lives, humanly decent lives, the kind of lives that would make Cormac, Paul, John and Todd truly proud.
Here were young men who did not wait for life to test them but who volunteered to be tested. Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has said there were no words that could do justice to the person that Cormac was but that ‘If you're looking for a real role model, then you look no further than Cormac McAnallen’. He brought determination and dedication to his football and sporting life. And what a record of achievement in someone so young: he captained the Tyrone Minors to All-Ireland success in 1998; he captained the Tyrone under-21s to consecutive All-Ireland successes in 2000 and 2001 and was named Young Footballer of the Year 2001; he was a member of the winning Queen’s Sigerson Cup team in 2000 and was awarded a Queen’s Blues Award in 1999 for his outstanding contribution to sport at the university; he was a member of the UCD Co. Dublin Championship winning team in 2002; National League winner with the Tyrone Senior Team in 2002 and 2003; he was a member of the winning Tyrone Senior All-Ireland team two years ago and in the same year awarded an All-Star, and the list goes on. But behind that glittering list, the envy of thousands and the thwarted ambition of thousands of sportsmen and women, there lies a story of hard choices made, of training in winter cold, of saying no to the socialising that would have interfered with fitness, of putting the team first and the self second, of accepting his limitations yet pushing always for self- improvement, of respecting, acknowledging and encouraging the talents of others, giving them confidence, bridging the gaps caused by their uncertainty, showing how tenacity could win the day.
It was typical of Cormac that when he made his victory speech after the Tyrone Minors All-Ireland success in 1998, he delivered it as Gaeilge, in the language he learned to love, encouraged by his parents, Brendan and Bridget. Here was a young man of almost precocious maturity but with no hint of precociousness. A young man solidly immersed in his culture, sure of his identity, who relished the chances each day gave him to showcase the things that fuelled his heart, his imagination and his soul. A curious and gifted young man enthralled by life who mixed and mingled in every company and who chose as his life’s vocation to be a teacher. It is a very telling choice. For a young man whose days were so sadly numbered he knew the future of our island depended on the quality of our young people and so he invested his life in theirs, opening up to them the vision that drove him. It starts with a vision for the self but it ends up being a vision for community and for country. It says to each young person, no matter what their circumstances in life, no matter what the distractions or temptations - seek the best in yourself, be brave and curious about what you can make of your life, build on your strengths and confront your weaknesses, don’t be afraid of pressures or challenges but have the courage to walk away from the things that demean and damage the self and others. Cormac didn’t just talk it, he walked it. He walked tall, not with arrogance or false pride, but with the walk of a man who knew exactly where he was going and how he was going to get there. No alcohol or drug abuse was going to open up a pothole for him to fall into, no self-pity or laziness was going to slow the journey or make him stop short of his true destination, no absence of self-knowledge was going to take him down a cul-de-sac, no peer pressure was going to entice him to betray his values. There is a saying that if you want the crowd to follow you, don’t follow the crowd. Cormac was the very opposite of a loner yet he did not follow the crowd. He charted his path, lit his own lamp and its light, its warmth, his light, his warmth, exercised the moral pull that is the hallmark of every good leader. People turned to the light, sought the warmth, followed the path he had charted.
And that’s what leadership is - the ability to inspire others to follow because they respect and trust your judgment and believe in the truth of your vision. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Some make the history books but most do not. Some bring magic to life, some bring misery. Some bully, some persuade. Some are good, some are evil. What kind of leader was Cormac?
Eglish St Patrick's manager Matthew McGleenin put it so well when he said, ‘We recall the extraordinary influence that Cormac exercised on a wide variety of people, his smile, the quality of his relationships with others, his gentleness, professionalism, dedication, humility and sense of humour.’.
In a world where so many predators lie in wait to waste the lives and talents of our children, to stop them from fully blossoming, to exploit their weaknesses and ruin their life-chances, here is a young man whose short life had about it a breathtaking fullness and completeness. He had known the love of good parents, the nurturing of a happy home, the confidence of a fine education, the revelation of his talents, the thrill of success, the wonder of romantic love, the joy of friendship, the responsibility of leadership. Every day presented him with opportunities to build on those gifts or to throw them away. He chose to build and, in building up himself, he built up his family, his street, his community, his country, his culture.
We know he was a remarkable son, a sporting genius, a marvellous colleague, we know too he would have made a loving husband, a deeply caring family and community man. We know his loss was and is devastating, for good leaders of his calibre are the utterly essential defenders and champions of a world based on dignity, justice, equality, freedom, human rights. They understand the frailty of the world at a deep level but they are intoxicated by its wonder too. They have a faith in the rest of us that is unshakeable. They see strengths in us and hope in us and love in us that we might overlook but for the extra dimension to their vision and their intuition. In a chaotic world with so many living in poverty and despair, with so many unresolved conflicts, with so many individuals and homes damaged by hurts, good leaders are the miracle we pray for. We thank God for Cormac McAnallen’s life and for its lasting legacy, not just of great sporting memories but of an individual and brief life lived with honour, with true nobility – a life that illuminates still, the path to a world to be proud of, created by individuals to be proud of. It has been my honour to deliver the inaugural Cormac McAnallen Lecture.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.