REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO MARK THE CENTENARY OF THE IRISH UNIVERSITIES ACT
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO MARK THE CENTENARY OF THE IRISH UNIVERSITIES ACT 1908 AT ARAS AN UACHTARÁIN
I would like to warmly welcome you all, my distinguished guests, to Áras an Uachtaráin this afternoon on this most historic occasion. In particular I welcome the NUI delegation headed by Chancellor Dr Garret FitzGerald and the Queen’s University delegation led by Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Gregson and Pro-Chancellor Sir David Fell.
The test now is how to describe institutions like the National University of Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast that are 100 years old, with a history going back several decades further.
“Venerable” is one word which comes to mind but it conjures up images of institutions revered and remote or elderly relatives with charming eccentricity. While both are worthy of reverence, and eccentricity is positively to be encouraged among academics, neither is in any way remote from the communities they serve.
“National treasures” would be a good phrase, because they are, but it conveys too much a sense of museum pieces, which they most definitely are not.
“Centres of excellence” is a phrase much in vogue and of course they are that but the phrase has too much of the PR spin to it - and neither NUI nor Queen’s need spin to look good.
The word I have settled on to describe these fine institutions, in this their centenary year, is “successful”. They have each been outstandingly successful. Successful in the tens of thousands of people they have helped, through education, to achieve their potential. Successful in the contribution they have made to the social and cultural life of the communities they serve. Successful in the fine minds they have trained for the professions, for public service and for business. And successful in their contribution to the development of a civil, democratic society on this island.
Operating within age-old traditions of academic freedom and institutional autonomy, the universities have matured from scholarly academies for an elite in 1908 into places of scholarly mass higher education, having an impact on every part of the social, cultural and economic life of Ireland and far beyond, but without sacrificing that attention to quality which is the hallmark of fine universities the world over. My warmest congratulations go to all those who have contributed to this, including all of you here today – each college, each university has its own distinct persona, its own history of people and achievements. Very much part of this island’s past, they are an indispensable part of its future, North and South.
When the Office of President of Ireland is associated with centenarians most people will think of the “centenarians bounty”. I have no cheque to hand out today, although I am sure no president would refuse it if I had in these times of shrinking budgets. But what I do have is the greatest respect and affection for two wonderful centenarians which have given so much to me personally, to Ireland, to Northern Ireland and to the world.