REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION “TREASURES FROM THE NORTH…”
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION "TREASURES FROM THE NORTH: IRISH PAINTINGS FROM THE ULSTER MUSEUM
Is mór an onóir agus pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.
Good evening, everybody.
It is good to be back in the Millennium Wing of the National Gallery and on a very special North South occasion when the Ulster Museum comes to Dublin and this Ulster woman has the privilege of opening a wonderful exhibition –Treasures from the North: Irish Paintings from the Ulster Museum. I am very grateful to Raymond Keaveney for the chance to be part of this special occasion.
You would not think that Northern Ireland held any more secrets. After decades in which the investigative journalists of the world honed their skills in this tiny part of northwest Europe, when the libraries of the world groan with the weight of books about Ulster, you would think that there could be no more surprises. But there is a gem in Belfast called The Ulster Museum, a place in which in another life I spent many hours of happy wonder, a needed antidote to the less happy world outside the museum which attracted all those journalists, all those books. It was there I learnt that dinosaurs had inhabited the world for 150 million years before their extinction and that certainly put Northern Ireland’s problems into a fresh perspective. It was there that I and many others were introduced to the genius of Irish and international artists. Last October the Museum closed its doors for necessary refurbishment but with typical Northern irony and inventiveness the closure of its doors has become an opportunity to introduce itself to a wider public through an outreach programme which brings some of its wonderful treasures to Dublin and to the National Gallery.
We wish the Museum well with its ambitious 12 million pound refurbishment and look forward to those doors reopening in 2009 and drawing visitors again into that spellbinding world of archaeology, fine art, applied art, history, natural sciences and world culture but meanwhile our appetites are to be seriously whetted for the next six months by The "Treasures from the North" exhibition. These 60 carefully chosen paintings take us on a journey through the best of the Ulster Museum’s Irish collection. Many of the names are well known, Lavery, Henry, Yeats, le Brocquy and Scot, Barret, Nathaniel Hone Conor Lamb McKelvey Blackshaw, O’Brien, TP Flanagan. Others are lesser known but deserving of the recognition this exhibition confers, artists like Joseph Peacock and James Glen Wilson. Visitors will see everything from exquisite landscapes, society portrait and raw urban life to the tragic image of an emigrant ship departing Belfast in the 1850’s.
The hosting of this exhibition in Dublin is a perfect showcase of the enormous benefits to the general public that flow from cross-border co-operation between major cultural institutions. It is also a very fine reciprocation of a previous example of co‑operation between these two institutions when the National Gallery of Ireland lent its collection of Turner watercolours to the Ulster Museum, while the former was undergoing redevelopment. I hope that the success of both exhibitions, which encourage these institutions to explore further opportunities for innovative collaboration between them for not only do they open access to a much wider audience but they also help to consolidate a spirit of mutual good will which is so essential for the development of healthy relationships on this shared island. Here the world of civic institutions is giving vital civic leadership.
These are quite remarkable times in Ireland; they are unusual in the confluence of good things – peace, prosperity, cultural confidence and cultural diversity. They are exciting times and times to be proud of the achievements of this the best-educated generation ever. This exhibition introduces us to the genius of today’s generation and to the genius of those past generations from which contemporary artists took their inspiration and their challenge. I hope it will inspire the next generation to keep pushing Irish art to levels of international recognition which will see it revered in the same way that Irish drama and literature so often are.
Great credit is due to the Ulster Museum, especially to its Curators of Fine Art Dr. Eileen Black and Anne Stewart who selected the works for the exhibition and wrote the accompanying catalogue. They had superb support, not least from their colleagues in the National Gallery of Ireland, in particular, Fionnuala Croke, Head of Exhibitions and from those exceptional champions of the arts in Ireland, Carmel and Martin Naughton who funded the very informative and discerning catalogue.
I know the Board of Governors and management of the National Gallery would like to join me in acknowledging the generosity of the Ulster Museum and the Trustees of the National Museums in Northern Ireland for the loan of their valuable collection.
I congratulate the Chief Executive, the Director and staff of the Ulster Museum, the National Museums Northern Ireland and the National Gallery of Ireland for the considerable work and the painstaking care invested in presenting this exhibition. It is a generous loan among good friends and good neighbours, much appreciated and warmly welcomed.
It now gives me great pleasure to declare this exhibition open.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.