REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF AN COMHAIRLE LEABHARLANNA
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF AN COMHAIRLE LEABHARLANNA LIBRARIES & CULTURAL DIVERSITY PROJECT
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Is mór an onóir agus pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh inniú agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh agus an fáilte fiorchaoin.
It is good to have an opportunity to visit Ashbourne’s lovely library, especially when we gather to launch what is an important element in our country’s adaptation to our growing multicultural reality. My thanks to Norma McDermott, Director of The Library Council for the kind invitation to launch the Libraries and Cultural Diversity Project.
For generations Irish men and women were the emigrant strangers in other lands. Today that story has been radically reversed and now Ireland is the land of opportunity which attracts people from all over the globe. They bring their own unique stories, their languages, faiths, music, dance, cuisine, literature. They bring too the inevitable lostness and loneliness that results when you uproot from all that is familiar and settle among strangers. Ireland has long prided itself on being a land of welcomes - one hundred thousand welcomes we say, Céad Míle Fáilte. Now that culture of welcome is challenged, as never before, to respond effectively and sensitively to our new neighbours. Our emigrants brought the name and culture of Ireland around the world, their lives deeply enriching the communities they settled in. Now we, in turn, have the chance to be a society deepened and widened by the contributions of men, women and children from places and cultures from which we would otherwise remain remote. We are a curious people, interested in others and in their story. The fact that ten thousand people use this library alone every month tells us just how curious we are and how crucial a role libraries play in civic life generally.
Because public libraries are vibrant, accessible and user-friendly centres of knowledge and information, open to everyone whatever their age, education or nationality, they are the perfect setting to give explicit leadership in multicultural awareness and effective community integration. This insightful and very welcome initiative by the Irish public libraries working with An Chomhairle Leabharlanna explores how libraries can best respond to our multicultural and multilingual society, how they can make the stranger welcome among us and ensure we, as a civic society, are open to the processes of individual and collective cultural enrichment which a multicultural environment offers. The new services show respect for the world’s great diversity and importantly encourage a tolerant healthy curiosity about that diversity.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the project team who developed a multicultural profile of our society which was received and responded to with great enthusiasm by our non-native neighbours. It is marvellous to see access to multilingual books, materials and technology being made easily available and to see the ambition for even more advanced services being piloted here.
I commend too those bodies which are providing the funds for this initiative and indeed the other research projects into the development of library services which are underway as part of the Public Library Research Programme. A special word of thanks must go also to the organisations and personnel, too many to be named, who have contributed so much to this undertaking.
Finally, I would like to thank Meath County Council and everyone involved in organising this launch today, especially Ashbourne Library and its staff for making my visit so enjoyable and interesting. The collective passion you have for this project allows us to renew our faith in that Irish Fáilte for here you honour it in ways that are practical, human and meaningful in the daily lives of all those who are quietly shaping Ireland’s new and fascinating future.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.