REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF THE FARMING COMMUNITY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION IN ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF THE FARMING COMMUNITY
Is cúis mhór áthais dom fáilte a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
Martin and I are delighted to welcome each one of you to Áras an Uachtaráin and to this reception which focuses on Ireland’s farming community.
A fortnight ago I was at the National Ploughing Championships, that magnificent showcase of all that is best in Irish farming from the most sophisticated technology to the ancient tradition of meithil and friendship. For all that farming life has changed dramatically and numbers working the land have fallen, it was great to see and feel the vibrancy, the energy and the enthusiasm that is uniquely generated wherever two or more farmers are gathered. We hope to get some of that spirit going here today as we celebrate with gratitude the enormous contribution to our culture, our communities, our food supply, our food safety and our heritage that is made and renewed day in and day out by men and women like those gathered here today.
Very few of us are more than a generation from the land and it is very much part of our identity. Both my parents came from small farms, and I well remember my paternal grandfather who was very wary of getting in the electricity for what we now know was fear of regular bills, a hard thing to contemplate in a subsistence economy though at the time he claimed it was “the devil’s own instrument and that it would never catch on” I wonder what he would make of the present day high-tech, high borrowings economy in which farmers operate.
It is not so very long that James Joyce wrote of a drover on streets not very far from here
He travels after a winter sun,
Urging the cattle along a cold red road,
Calling to them, a voice they know,
He drives his beasts above Cabra.
And John McGahern in his recent Memoir tells of selling lambs right in the centre of Dublin. But like the horse drawn plough and the donkey and cart drawing turf from the bog those days have given way to the world of cars, computers, oil deliveries and a successful globalised Irish economy in which high added value agricultural products play a considerable part. Today’s farmer looks to Brussels as well as Dublin and to markets from Belfast to Beijing. It takes very resilient people to absorb such a breathtakingly fast pace of change and at the same time to hold together family and community with the same spirit of generosity and neighbourliness. That is what our farming community epitomizes and what earns our respect and admiration. So today we gather to say thank you.
Martin and I hope that your visit here today will be an enjoyable one, and that you will take the opportunity to relax in each other’s company and exchange a story or two.
Our thanks go to everybody who helped us bring this group together. That includes the National Ploughing Association, especially its dynamic director Anna May McHugh, and her daughter Anna Marie, and our many friends in the I.F.A across the country.
I would like to thank our entertainers, the wonderful musicians from Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann, our friends from Civil Defence for their expert assistance and the staff here at the Áras who work hard to make days like this enjoyable for everyone.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.