REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A SECONDARY SCHOOLS RECEPTION AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A SECONDARY SCHOOLS RECEPTION AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN ON WEDNESDAY, 23 OCTOBER, 2002
Cuireann sé an‑áthas orm agus ar m’fhear céile, Mairtín, fáilte ó chroí a chur romhaibh go léir go dtí Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
I would like to extend a heartfelt and very warm welcome to each and every one of you to Áras an Uachtaráin today. Many of you have travelled long distances to be here and just as many of you have spent a long time travelling short distances. Well now that you’ve got here, I hope that you will enjoy the afternoon, meet some people and maybe before you leave some of those new faces will have become new friends.
When I looked at the quote on my desktop calendar today the quote reads, “Only hungry minds can become educated”. That hunger is something, which you thankfully possess, that desire to push out boundaries, to question, to effect change. It is sometimes said that change is the only constant and as that great intellectual giant of modern Irish education, Cardinal John Newman said, “to be human is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.”. We have much to thank our educators, your teachers for, in exploring and unlocking your giftedness, for empowering you, enabling you to prepare for the challenges, the changes that life will inevitably present to you and indeed as I look around at you young people, the next generation of scientists and politicians and teachers, the challenges and changes that you will present and articulate to others.
I set you a particular challenge for today’s encounter and judging from the collages and conversations I’ve had with each group about your projects, I realise that I am obviously in the presence of young people who relish a challenge. I am very impressed with the enthusiasm and imagination you have demonstrated in completing your projects on the “Office of the President of Ireland” and I hope that you found the exercise both interesting and rewarding. Perhaps one or more of you will occupy that Office some day, but as you have to be thirty something, that’s not for a while yet!
We owe much thanks to your teachers for their support and encouragement to you in working on your project and for giving you this opportunity. I hope you will look back some day with appreciation to your school days and the wonderful contribution your teachers make in preparing you for adult life. The trials and tribulations of the teaching profession are I feel to some extent captured in the words of WC Sellar who said “ for every person wishing to teach there are thirty not wanting to be taught.” But I’m sure that’s not the case with the students here today.
Later I will be inviting you to take a closer look at the house and perhaps - if weather and time permit – a stroll in the very interesting and historic grounds. The art and architecture of this house – this place I have come to know as home over the past five years – reflect the many changes in generation and use with which it is associated – the British history – the Irish history – and our shared British/Irish history. It has been very carefully preserved and maintained – and is still used not just as a home – but also as a place as you will have learnt from your research, where we conduct State business - surrounded by the many influences that have made us the people we are today. It bridges the generations and the traditions and – in a very real sense – is a fitting place for us to meet and extend that concept to this and future generations. The room which we are now in was built as an indoor sports hall - a racquet court. Now it is Seomra de hÍde or the Hyde Room, and I am sure that there is no need to tell you after whom it was named.
I hope you enjoy the remainder of the afternoon. My thanks to our MC, Paul Kennedy and to Ciara Donohue who entertained us in the entrance hall as you arrived and to the immensely talented Loreto College Senior Choir here in this room. My thanks also to Commander Catherine Donaghy from Dublin Civil Defence for her expert assistance today. And I would like to say thanks to the Áras staff who work very hard to make days like this a success.
Go maire sibh go léir. Go raibh maith agaibh.