REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE SPEEDWELL TRUST’S STRATEGY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE SPEEDWELL TRUST’S STRATEGY WEDNESDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2008
I am delighted to be here with you today at the Speedwell Trust and I would very much like to express my appreciation to Eamon McClean, the Trust’s Manager, and the Trustees and staff of the Speedwell Trust for inviting me. I should, of course, mention the enormous work undertaken by Mrs Jean Kelly who did so much to build up this wonderful project since its inception in 1991.
First of all, let me congratulate you all for the wonderful work you have been doing here together. The varied examples of your cooperation and labour on display here are truly inspiring.
I am delighted to be speaking to a group of people dedicated to reconciliation and the development of positive relations between our communities. Often the most important work in building peace is happening like this within our communities, out of the spotlight and away from the attention that so often accompanies developments at the political level. But your quiet, insistent, painstaking efforts to build bridges of friendship, heart to heart, handshake to handshake, person to person are infinitely valuable and essential in this small jurisdiction and on this small island where the most welcoming of people have seen history’s ruptures waste their chances for deep and lasting friendships. You fight that waste and importantly you transcend it, consign it to history and though you don’t do any of this for recognition, or for honour, I am delighted to be able to draw attention to the wonderful work you do, and to thank you for it. It is an investment in all that is humanly decent.
I hope you feel very vindicated after so many frustrating years that this year has begun with a feeling of genuine hope, grounded in a remarkable fresh spirit of partnership and friendship that embraces a very significant critical mass of people, enough to give momentum and traction to the great reconciliation project which will ensure that the children who share this island will share each others lives more fully, more respectfully, more comfortably than any generation that has gone before. This is a time to use the new traction, to take full advantage of the opportunities now uniquely presented to us.
On 8 May last, shared devolved government, supported by and representing all sections of the community, returned to Northern Ireland. The overwhelming desire of all the people of this island for peace and prosperity is finally being realised by courageous and committed political leadership on all sides.
Through the collective efforts of many, through sustained leadership and vision, and through some risk-taking along the way, Northern Ireland - and indeed the island as a whole - has been brought to a hugely positive place in the past year.
It is no exaggeration to say that it was through the work of groups such as Speedwell Trust that genuine peace and reconciliation began to grow; often, it seemed, when there was scant hope of success and little encouragement. Your group, and others like it, with great faith and determination pointed the way forward when others were either reluctant or too nervous to take those critical, tentative, first steps forward. There are still the reluctant, the too-deeply-wounded, the unwilling; they too need your understanding and your continued insistence that reconciliation is the best way forward.
Through the past two decades, the Speedwell Trust continued its work of bringing children and young people from both traditions together in a safe and secure environment. In some ways your work is even more critical today, for it is vital that we all do what we can to underpin and strengthen the peace and create the conditions that will promote prosperity for all, whether Planter or Gael, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Catholic, Native or Newcomer. The strands that make up the tapestry of civic life both North and South are growing ever more colourful, ever more diverse. There is a new energy around - helped by those who have made their homes here from abroad - making an act of faith in this peace, this place. Your work has helped to make these new times possible, helped to make a bridge from a troubled past to a much safer and healthier future. I wish you every success in all you plan for the future, especially for the strategic plans which will shape the coming four exciting years.
Thank you for allowing me to share this day with you and for your care for our shared future.