Remarks by President McAleese at the National Awards Ceremony of the Our Active School Award
Remarks by President McAleese at the National Awards Ceremony of the Our Active School Award for Primary Schools
A chairde agus a pháistí.
Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ar an gcéad ócáid speisialta seo ‘Gradam dár Scoil Ghníomhach.’ Cuireann sé gliondar croí orm sibhse go léir a fheiceáil anseo agus tá súil agam go mbaineann sibh taitneamh agus tairbhe as an lá.
I feel a little guilty about arriving to this awards ceremony by car
- I suppose I should have jogged given that we are celebrating the importance of sport and physical exercise in education and in our lives. What brings us here is of course your success and I know from the display of your achievements which I viewed on the way in and enjoyed, that while there was plenty of fun on the way there was no easy road to today’s recognition. This awards ceremony is an excellent way to mark the European Year of Education through Sport and your work is the ideal way to showcase the role of sport in education.
Ireland’s greatest athlete Sonia O’Sullivan always felt strongly that her running helped her studies and there is little doubt that her incredible career grew out of the sporting opportunities she got at school as a youngster. Most of us don’t get Olympic medals or become world champions though a few do but what we all get from school sports is the fun and the fitness that add a lot to the quality of our lives. We learn about teamwork, about the discipline necessary for sport, we learn about ourselves, how hard it is for us to overcome self-pity and to test and stretch ourselves through sport. Through competition we learn about the joy of winning and the heartache of losing. We learn not to give up. To dig deep and find the courage to try again.
You now know from experience just how many sports there are and how exhilarating they are. You know too just how much time is given to them by an army of volunteer enthusiasts who want the gift of sport to be shared from generation to generation. We want our young people to be healthy and happy, to be absorbed by good things in their lives, to be enthralled by pursuits that build them up as human beings.
Life tests all of us in many ways. You can wait for the tests and challenges to come at you or you can create your own challenges, submit yourself to the tests of character and courage that sport demands so that when life’s inevitable obstacles arrive you will know what you are made of. In committing to sport, in committing to things like for example the President’s Award Challenge Gaisce, you don’t wait around for life to tackle you, you tackle life and in the process of kicking a ball or sailing a boat, or hurling a sliothar or gaining a brown belt, your greatest prize is in making yourself mentally, emotionally and physically strong.
Involvement in sport, a passion for sport, is the most intelligent use of your time and your talent. There are many ways to waste both and many predators who would take delight in seeing your lives thrown away in alcohol or drug abuse, in never shifting from the sofa, in hanging around feeling bored and uninspired. People who are involved in sport have an inner glow, a zest for life that makes them good company, good colleagues, good citizens. We are so lucky that in Ireland there is a widespread love of sport and for sheer entertainment it is hard to beat.
I would like to congratulate each and every one of you for participating in the ‘AIB Our Active School’ Week and working so hard on your projects, for telling us and showing us what you have been doing. I was very impressed by the wonderful projects I saw on the way in including the video clips and lots of photographs of smiling faces. I could see just how much you have learned and how much you have enjoyed it all. I’m sure you appreciate how much time and effort your teachers and parents give to introducing you to sports and games – not just on days like today, or even in Active School Weeks, but week after week and month after month all year around. So let us give them a very big bualadh bos for all this hard work. We also owe a vote of thanks to the members of the Organising Committee for the AIB Active School Week, who have worked hard to organize today’s event, and who have also worked during the year to get Active School Weeks organised in thousands of schools around the country. A big thank you to AIB for their generous sponsorship of the active week and finally, I thank all of you who have participated and showcased sport in school at its absolute best. Each of you is here because of the excellence of your project and you are entitled to be very proud to be part of this day.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh go léir.