REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE THE YEAR OF CRAFT 2011 ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE THE YEAR OF CRAFT 2011 ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN 26TH JANUARY, 2011
Dia dhíbh a chairde ‘s fáilte chuig Áras an Uachtaráin tráthnona. I am very privileged to be able to welcome to Áras an Uachtaráin so many of the people who are passionate about Irish crafts as we celebrate the Year of Craft 2011 and also mark the 40th anniversary of the Crafts Council of Ireland.
Earlier today at the Craft Summit in Farmleigh, some of you had the chance to reflect on the direction for crafts in Ireland and their wide-ranging potential. I hope you came away from those sessions full of renewed energy and ideas for the year ahead.
For some, Irish crafts are a remarkable industry, where tradition and innovation are found in abundance and where they make a very significant contribution to local and national economies. For others like me, crafts are where we express our personal creativity and enjoy the satisfaction and fulfilment of making beautiful things or attractive functional things by our own hands, using skills taught to us by mothers and grandmothers, using techniques we have developed and perfected over a lifetime, but which link us to generations who for millennia have been creating things, for use, for adornment, for fun, for curiosity, for payment, for progress.
The history of Irish craftwork and artistry takes us back to the bronze age when Irish hands first crafted fabulous, intricate pieces from gold and copper, through the ages to hand weavers laboriously spinning gorgeous yarns to produce our native tweeds and linens that have appeared on the cat-walks of major fashion houses of Europe and the US, to our lace makers, knitters, silversmiths, jewellers, glass producers, furniture makers, quilters, basket weavers and potters and all the others too many to list. In some areas technology has wrought huge changes but in others the painstaking handwork is still fundamental and in all cases it is the excellence of craftsmanship that puts these crafts into a class of their own.
Our leading craft industries of glasswear, pottery and textiles have been flying the flag on the international stage for many years. They have contributed greatly to Ireland’s standing as a world crafts leader and they have inspired new generations of craftsmen and women in an ever wider range of disciplines, disciplines to be globally ambitious. Our young designers and crafts people are no strangers to international success either and I hear that even Lady Gaga who is recognised as much for her style as for her music is lining up to admire and seeking out the work of one of our leading leather workers. At this time when we need jobs to keep our talented young people at home, we look to the crafts among others to keep pushing out the boundaries of achievement and to keep encouraging and supporting entrepreneurialism among our crafts people.
From when I was small I have had a lifelong passion for the traditional crafts of sewing, knitting and quilting and so I was thrilled, as an enthusiastic amateur to become Patron of the Year of Craft 2011. I know the personal joy my own work has brought to me. I know the inspiration and insight I have received from the crafts of others. I know the pride and the hope generated by the sheer beauty and creativity of our crafts industry.
In this busy year the Crafts Council of Ireland and Craft Northern Ireland will be working assiduously together with your network of partners in tourism, local authorities, enterprise boards, LEADER and members of the craft community to put on shows and displays throughout the island celebrating this wonderful heritage that represents a proud past, a dynamic present and an important part of our future. With high profile shows in Europe and New York also planned and hosting of the World Crafts Council General Assembly and conference in Dublin in June, this is set to be a remarkable year. I wish you well.
Thank you all for your attendance here today and may I wish each and every one of you continued success for the future.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.