REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE EDMUND RICE REGIONAL AWARDS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE EDMUND RICE REGIONAL AWARDS THURSDAY, 2 MAY, 2002
Tá áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croíúil.
I owe a big thank you to Margaret O’Driscoll, Anne Barry-Murphy and the members of the Organising Committee for inviting me to the Edmund Rice Awards Ceremony where students and teachers from every corner of this island come together for a great celebration of generosity.
That word “generosity” is associated with all the things that make life worthwhile, the things that bring us hope and happiness. It is about kindness, selflessness, charity, forgiveness, tolerance, self-sacrifice, big-heartedness. If we woke up every day to a world where we met with nothing but generosity what an amazing place the world would be. The more people who practice generosity, the more people who commit to goodness and kindness, the quicker we will arrive at that generous world that we all wish for, that we are all waiting for, and that needs us all to work to make it happen.
Edmund Ignatius Rice lived, in the words of Edith Mary Johnson, in “an age of insecurity”. People feared for their lives during those grim, hate-filled days of the Penal Laws. The ordinary people were oppressed by a tyrannical and violent government which treated them with the most awesome contempt. Yet it was also a time when those same ordinary people found inside themselves great strength, resilience, courage and faith. Among them was Edmund Rice. His hometown of Callan was known as Calainn a Clamapir or ‘Wrangling Callan’ so great were the tensions the people lived with. And apart from the corrupt, vindictive politics of the day, Edmund Rice had plenty of other sorrows to break his heart and to test his character. His wife died very young and yet instead of surrendering to despair he looked at all the problems around him and asked himself, what can I do to make them better? He felt passionately that education was the key to lifting the poor out of their powerless misery and of course he was right. Education opens up a world of new choices. It gives people control over their own lives. It gives them a confident voice to argue with. It is the surest pathway to the creation of a just, fair and equal society. One man with a vision, he was able to persuade others to join his army that would fight with pen and paper for a new Ireland of equals and so he founded the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Sister and Brother schools.
Today’s Ireland is a very different world. It is more prosperous and thankfully at last more peaceful, but many still know what it is to be oppressed, to be victims of violence or prejudice, to be bullied, to be poor. The Edmund Rice Award Scheme is about making sure that our poor and marginalised are not forgotten, that young minds are turned to them with compassion and generosity, with understanding and care. It’s about forming the question in the minds of another generation- what can we do to solve the problems in our world, what can we do to keep Ireland moving towards becoming the best, the kindest, the most equal society it possibly can be.
The workshops you have been part of here, the experience you have shared, will have given you a chance to look inside the lives of people who are lonely, lost, scared, frightened, hungry, jobless. They are wondering does anyone care. They are wondering is this all there is to their lives, to be paralysed spectators while everyone else seems to be moving on.
We are very lucky that Ireland has a long and proud tradition of neighbour helping neighbour which few other nations can equal. We helped each other when we had very little. Our emigrants did the same wherever in the world they went. They formed organisations to help each wave of newcomers, to make it easier for the next generation. For many men and women that helping hand made all the difference. It changed lives for the better.
In a recent EU survey on social attitudes, the findings painted a picture of a world that is growing more selfish, more individualistic, where it is harder to get people to give up their time to get involved in voluntary work, where people are more suspicious and less trusting of one another. I am lucky that my work as President brings me into contact every day with the army of fantastic kind, generous people who make Ireland tick. They are caring for the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poor, the bereaved, the illiterate, early school leavers, the teenage mothers, the homeless, drug abusers, children from Chernobyl, refugees, travellers - you name the problem, there is a group of Irish volunteers getting stuck in and dealing with it. They are running thousands of sports clubs for thousands of youngsters. They are raising money for every kind of charity at home and abroad. They are the glue that holds our society together. They are the reservoir of goodness, kindness, idealism, decency and caring that brings light into lives, that makes life itself something mysteriously beautiful and worth looking forward to. They are the people we hope you will become and more than that, we know they are the people you are already well on the way to becoming because you are here today.
I am very, very impressed by what I have seen here today. You have seen for yourselves what the needs are in our communities. Your projects have drawn you directly into the lives of our brothers and sisters who are experiencing hardship or problems of one sort or another and you have learnt that where there is care and concern there is hope.
One thing I have been told time and time again by those who are the comforters and the carers, those who put generosity into the lives of others, is that no matter how hard the work, no matter how difficult it seems to the outsider, they receive more in personal fulfilment, friendship and wisdom than they ever give. There is an expression in the lovely prayer of St. Francis which says that - it is in giving that we receive.
Sometimes in our increasingly self-centred world it is hard to believe that but when you do it and you feel the wonder and the magic of it, you know it to be true. When we help others we help ourselves to become happier and better people so the world benefits from two more contented people and more than that, others see what you do and they wonder what would happen if they tried being kinder and more thoughtful too.
Every one of us here knows what it feels like when someone has been mean or spiteful or hurtful or selfish and we have been the victims. We know how devastating it is, how tempting it is to fight back with more bitter words, more hurt, more hate. Yet we also know how our hearts were lifted when someone praised us or offered us help and support just when we needed it. Which world do you want to live in? The cold world where people ignore each others needs or the warm world where we give each other the best we have in our hearts? Which way makes the world the better place?
Edmund Rice showed what a difference one person can make and so can each one of you. You have already made a great start and as the old Irish proverb says “tús maith is leath na hoibre - a good start is half the work”. To each of you who have already begun to make a difference I say well done and a heartfelt thank you. You make us all very proud and full of faith in the future.
I congratulate everyone involved in ensuring the success of this Scheme – the Edmund Rice National Committee and the Trustees of the Christian Brothers – and the unwavering support and encouragement of the staff of Marino Institute of Education among others. I congratulate you, the students, on your work, your achievements and for bringing hope into the lives of so many. I know that in years to come you will look back with pride on the community work of your teenage years and perhaps the lines from Oscar Wilde will come to mind –
Surely there was a time I walked the sunlight heights
And out of all life’s discord
Plucked one chord of harmony
That reached the ear of God.
Go raibh maith agaibh.