REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF CARN RESOURCE CENTRE AGHABOG, CO. MONAGHAN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF CARN RESOURCE CENTRE AGHABOG, CO. MONAGHAN THURSDAY, 8TH FEBRUARY, 2001
Is cúis mhór áthais dom bheith anseo libh inniu ag an ocáid specialta seo. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh agus an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I am delighted to join you this afternoon in Aghabog to open this wonderful Resource Centre and I would like to thank Alice Gallagher, Chairperson of the Development Association for the kind invitation.
It is a great credit to the whole community that in four short years you have succeeded in bringing this project to such a successful conclusion and this fine building is a great credit to each and every one of you.
Your success tells its own powerful story - a story of people who share a tremendous sense of community spirit. This spirit is sustained by people of big hearts, and wonderful imaginations, generous with their time, their skills, their enthusiasm, who care about their communities and about the sort of future their children will face.
I am sure this community spirit has helped the families and neighbours to cope with the tragic loss of two young members of this community, Veronica McAloon and her cousin Louise in the tragic accident in January last. Such loss is heartbreaking and I know that our thoughts are with Martin and Mary McAloon, and Louise’s dad Owen and with all their close family. They will always hold a special place in the hearts and minds of this community. Caring communities share their good days and their bad. They allow people to realise they are not alone.
This same spirit of community has helped nourish Aghabog and other rural communities during the dark days when the despair of recession took its toll on the hopes and dreams of generations of Irish people. It was heartbreaking to endure the mass exodus of young people from the land because of the lack of opportunity in farming and in employment which were the hallmarks of Ireland in previous decades. But for border counties such as Monaghan, all of these problems were compounded by the terrible conflict taking place on your doorstep and the disruption of traditional hinterlands and bonds between communities.
It is communities like Aghabog that have invested most in the peace process, because you know that lasting peace is built from the ground up, by men, women and children in communities like this all around this island. It is built by people who care about their communities, by those who are willing to reach out across old boundaries and create new links and shared benefits for all. And so it is right that communities like this that have invested most in building peace, should also reap the social and economic benefits of that peace and face the future with confidence, determination and enthusiasm. This new community centre, built with the generous assistance of the Peace and Reconciliation Fund, is a very real sign of hope and renewal.
I would like to pay tribute to the many partners whose shared vision and common efforts helped bring this project to life. I have already mentioned the Peace and Reconciliation Fund who provided excellent advice and assistance to progress the project. Great thanks are due to the statutory bodies who also provided assistance, Monaghan County Council, and the Departments of Social Community and Family Affairs and Tourism Sport and Recreation.
A very special word of congratulations to the Community Development Association, this hardy band of committed community volunteers whose enthusiasm and inspiration sparked the whole community to back the project and to dig deep into their pockets to help get the project up and running. Not everyone is good at doing the slog work needed to get projects such as this developed, but thank God there are such people and you have them in abundance here. People who go out and raise funds and organise lotto syndicates, who give freely of their time and their skills to the benefit of the whole community.
This is a great achievement for what is a relatively small community. And I understand that already, your work has started to pay off and that every member of the community from toddlers to the more mature among you has the opportunity to take part in the various activities and Groups who are based in the Centre. Joining in the activities in the Centre will help build the shared memories on which communities grow and thrive and I wish you joy of them.
It is my great pleasure to declare the Carn Development Centre officially open.
- Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.