REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE IRISH STUDIES PROGRAMME THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE IRISH STUDIES PROGRAMME THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MISSOULA, 16TH MAY 2006
Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu agus is onóir mhór dom gur iarr sibh orm bhur gclár nua ollscoile ar an Léann Éireannach a láinseáil agus a chur sa tsiúl. Is cúis áthais ar leith dom go bhfuil teanga bhinn na nGael mar dhlúth-chuid don chlár nua seo. Cuireann sé gliondar ar mo chroí go bhfuil an Ghaeilge á staidéar, á cur chun cinn agus á labhairt anseo i measc sléibhte arda, maorga Montana.
President Dennison, members of faculty and administration, and the student-community of The University of Montana and guests. A Martian studying a map of the earth would find it hard to believe that in this beautiful part of the United States so far from Ireland, a wandering Irish President would find a place where the ancient Gaelic language is spoken. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t have to be a Martian to register some disbelief. But here, many thousands of miles from the Emerald Isle, today’s launch of an Irish Studies programme at this distinguished university signals a fresh and exciting new chapter in the relationship between Ireland and Montana. It is a relationship that stretches back over 150 years, a relationship hewn out of the lived lives of emigrant Irish men and women who made Montana their home but kept Ireland in their hearts. I think today of giants like Marcus Daly from Ballyjamesduff and Montana’s first Governor Thomas Francis Meagher from Waterford, a man once sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for his role in fighting for Irish freedom. It is simply not possible to tell the story of Montana without mentioning their names and acknowledging their role and the role of all those other Irish whose names are carved in Montana’s graveyards and her history.
In the middle of the nineteenth century Montana welcomed tens of thousands of very wretched Irish driven out of their beloved homeland by starvation and political oppression, among them of course Daly and Meagher. They brought their hopes, heritage, music, history and these things they wove into the story and heritage of Montana, creating bonds of kinship and affection which we in our turn build on today. I like to think that the suffering they endured is in some way vindicated in the success of their children’s children and in this programme of Irish studies which we are inaugurating today - a programme that opens up to generations of students to come, the abundant heritage of an illustrious and ancient nation whose sons and daughters played a significant part in the making of modern America.
We know now that the opening lines of Montana’s Irish history may have been written by Irish-speaking trappers who lived and worked among Native Americans. That relationship gave rise to a new community whose culture of music and dance is unmistakably Gaelic. I believe that a delegation from University College, Cork, visited this campus last year and were spellbound by the similarities between Irish and Meti music.
Such facts are little-known in Ireland and it is heartening to know that the complex relationship between the Irish and the Native American people, all those historic blind spots, are the subject of ongoing research at this University, research which will fill out the Irish/American narrative, giving us access to a fuller more comprehensive picture and understanding. But the new course will bring students way beyond the boundaries of Montana on a global odyssey through time and territories for the Irish have had a global reach like few other nations. That reach extended from the early mid-first millennium when Irish monks who inhabited what was probably the most literate part of the planet strode across Europe bringing literacy and the Christian Gospel; to the story of St Brendan the Navigator credited with discovering the Americas centuries before Columbus; to the millions of Irish emigrants to the United States, Canada, Britain, Argentina and Australia; to the thousands of Irish missionaries who brought education and healthcare to the poor of the world; to its contemporary membership of both the United Nations and the European Union, the name of Ireland has long had a remarkable, peaceful, spiritual, political and intellectual global influence way in excess of its unremarkable size. In the course of our long history we had but one enemy, now a good neighbour and a partner in the Peace Process in Northern Ireland but we were always fortunate in our friends - none better or closer than our friends here. I thank those of you in this audience who have made it part of your own mission to keep building and refreshing those ties of kinship and friendship and especially those who have put them on the sound footing exemplified by the new Irish Studies Programme.
You won’t be surprised if I single out for special mention Professor Traolach O’Riordáin laochra Gael, a champion of Irish heritage. Is eol dom go bhfuil gaisce déanta ag Traolach Ó Riordáin ar son léann agus teanga na hÉireann abhus anseo sna Stáit. Guím gach rath air agus ar a chuid oibre. Traolach has invested so much of his talent and time to the development of interest in Irish language, culture and heritage here in Montana and it is wonderful to see his dedication recognised in the Irish Government’s financial support of €30,000 for Irish language teaching under the new programme. The money comes from a special fund which the Government has established to support the development of Irish language courses overseas and I know it will be put to great use here just as those dollars and cents raised here in Montana back in the early 1900’s helped Ireland’s first President, Dr. Douglas Hyde, but then President of the Gaelic League, in his efforts to revive the Irish language in Ireland. When he came to Montana in 1906 he found a flourishing branch of the Gaelic League already in existence, language classes being taught and large crowds of Irish-speakers waiting to receive him.
So there is a powerful sense that the hand of history is at work here today. It seems to me to be no mere accident that we inaugurate a programme of Irish studies that focuses on the Irish language in the year 2006, one hundred years after Douglas Hyde came to Montana seeking your help to save our then imperilled native language. 2006 is also the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Ireland. The Rising struck deep into the hearts of the people of Montana and inspired poetry and song. One such poem in particular, Seachtain na Cásca [Easter Week], penned by Seán Ó Suilleabháin, was a great favourite of our former President Éamon de Valera. De Valera, himself an Irish-American born in New York, was a warm friend of Montana and visited here in 1919.
Today a prosperous, wealthy Ireland is one of the world’s most globalised and open economies in the world and indeed the University of Montana has taken the lead role in forging economic ties with Ireland through its Montana World Trade Centre in the Business School. Two trade missions, one in 2003 and another in 2005, have generated a very exciting increase in trade and investment between our two dynamic economies. Hand in hand with our economic renaissance, Irish culture in every sphere is going through a time of confident creativity, whether the subject is sport, theatre, film, art, design, music and all the rest. The Irish language is flourishing in nurseries and primary and second level schools from Belfast to Newry, from Dublin to Cork as a high-achieving generation follows the strong call of its identity back to its source. And our creative imagination draws from deep wells not just in Ireland but in Montana, Melbourne, Manchester, from all the places where two or more Irish gathered and planted the seed of their nation’s spirit.
This University is a tributary flowing into and replenishing that spirit. I wish success to all those who will teach and study here and to your collaborators in Notre Dame and University College, Cork, Ireland. I feel a deep sense of pride to formally announce the launch of the University of Montana’s Irish Studies Programme. As the old saying puts it ‘those who drink the water should remember with gratitude those who dug the well.’ I came to say thank you to Ireland’s family and friends in Montana. Ireland is privileged to have such family, such friends, such champions.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh anseo. Gurb fada buan sibh ‘s go raibh míle míle maith agaibh.