REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY OF IRELAND
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY OF IRELAND ST. PATRICK’S HALL, DUBLIN CASTLE
Is mór an pléisiúr dom bheith anseo i bhur measc anocht. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
I am delighted to be with you here tonight on this special occasion - my thanks to Colonel Donal O’Carroll, President of the Military History Society for the kind invitation.
We meet at an auspicious time when a definable chapter in Irish military history is ending as Irish UNIFIL Troops withdraw from Lebanon after twenty three years. The unique character of the Irish Defence Forces relationship with Lebanon, its people, its other UNIFIL heroes - these things have fed into the contemporary Irish and Lebanese imagination. It is so important that we have chroniclers of these times, these stories for access to them is part of the journey towards knowing our very selves. It is why we need Societies such as yours, to be the custodians, the stewards of our memory, the gatekeepers who can offer us access to that past of many chapters.
Ireland’s military past has captivated our collective imagination for generations but never more so than in the years that followed the end of the Second World War. This interest covered not only military actions that had taken place in Ireland over the centuries, but also the involvement of thousands of Irishmen serving in foreign armies in Europe and further afield. And so it was that in January, 1949, this shared pre-occupation brought together a group of enthusiasts who decided to found a society for the promotion of the study of the military history of Ireland, which they defined as “this history of warfare in Ireland and Irishmen in war”.
Since its inception, the Military History Society has earned respect and admiration for playing its part as a bridge-builder between the various traditions on this island. Among the early council members were General Officers and other notable soldiers from both the Irish and British Armies as well as academic and professional historians from both Ireland and Great Britain. At a time when the forces of history had skewed the relationship between this island and our nearest neighbour, your Society transcended those differences and opened up a relationship of respect and goodwill in order to follow the paths that many of our soldiers followed, often to their deaths. Generations paid a high price for history’s legacy and it is a matter of both pride and reassurance to us that their memory is honoured by your dedication to painstakingly recording their story in battles throughout the world. I admire the energy and foresight of those early members who set about this task and who within the first year of the Society’s foundation produced The Irish Sword, a journal of the highest standard, which has since become the most widely-quoted reference library both here and abroad, on Irish military history.
Looking back over those years since 1949, we know that learning, understanding and respecting difference is crucial to the resolution of all conflicts. To promote knowledge of our shared past provides a window to the future – a window through which we can see the prejudices, misconceptions, misapprehensions, passions and perceptions that poison that well of human decency and kindness that we all thirst for, need, and yet as that shared history has taught us over and over, are so capable of denying to each other. We have in this country now a peace, hard won and maybe fragile in places but a peace all the same, founded on the belief and acceptance that 95% of something humanly decent is better than 100% of nothing. On September 22 we commemorated the anniversary of a battle that completely transformed a way of life on this island and the relationship between this island and our nearest neighbour – the Battle of Kinsale. With the Good Friday Agreement we should not, must not meet to commemorate battles of the 21st century. Too many generations have witnessed the terrible ravages and hurt of war both at home and on the battlefields of places very far from home. I am reminded of the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg, himself killed in the 1st World War, who said of war:
None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.
In Ireland we have this opportunity to ensure that the wild honey, the life, is not drained from our youth anymore. Some of the old hatreds still prevail, some hearts are still cold but it is my firm belief that in time this too will change, must change so our children will not reflect in classrooms on another missed opportunity. As TS Eliot put it so beautifully:
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden
We live in a world where conflict is a constant danger and weapons grow endlessly in power; a world where states still collapse in anarchy, where the passion and fear aroused in ethnic conflict can lead to genocide. It is a world where population grows; where poverty, hunger and injustice oppress hundreds of millions. We cannot expect to change it quickly, but as members of the global family we can work together in co-operation to resolve its most serious problems through effective international institutions to which we give our full support.
Fragile and transient we may be as individuals but our strength is in working together to address global problems in the common interest; to work to avert or end war; advance human rights; establish a rule of law based on justice between states, mobilise the human capacity for compassion and solidarity to help the disadvantaged; protect the defenceless; and promote human freedom and potential.
Our Irish Defence Forces have worked tirelessly over many decades now to achieve these goals in co-operation with UN colleagues – as peacemakers, as respected protectors of the innocent and the oppressed, as professional soldiers not afraid to show compassion. It is a role that members of the Irish Defence Forces have played on overseas service over the past forty years. Some of that service has been as part of a commitment by UNIFIL to the people of Lebanon, and earlier this month the last detachment - the 89th Irish Battalion UNIFIL departed Lebanon. It was the end of 23 years continuous service in Lebanon and it was an experience that Irish soldiers can reflect on with pride. They earned the respect and admiration of both their colleagues from other UN contingents and the people they sought to protect. Many of our very finest gave their lives or were injured in the cause of peace, not only in Lebanon, for some of you will recall and may have even served with some of those who tragically lost their lives at Niemba and elsewhere in the Congo over 40 years ago. And there were more – many more.
Tomorrow it will be my great honour and privilege to review the standing down parade in Dublin city centre for all those who served in Lebanon. It will give us an opportunity to acknowledge in some way the contribution that the men and women of the Defence Forces have made in Lebanon and on other missions, and the pride with which we hold them - our wonderful ambassadors for peace.
I would like to thank you all for your warm welcome to me this evening. I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet with you and I hope that your society will continue to go from strength to strength.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.