REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WORLD CONVENTION OF MAYO ASSOCIATIONS WESTPORT, CO. MAYO
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WORLD CONVENTION OF MAYO ASSOCIATIONS WESTPORT, CO. MAYO SATURDAY, 28TH MAY, 2011
A dhaoine uaisle,
Is mór an onóir agus an aoibhneas dom bheith anseo libh inniú - muintir Mhaigh Eo de gach áit ar domhan - chun bhúr n-oidreacht a chéiliúradh libh agus bhúr obair dílis a aithníonn. I’d particularly like to thank Seán Reid and the Dublin and Galway Mayo Associations for the invitation to be here today to celebrate the global Mayo family, all that it is, all it has been and all that is to come from this most fascinating of Irish clans. As the child of a Roscommon father I can say that with conviction for who knows you better than your good neighbours. As President I have reason to know the pride evoked at home and all over the world where two or more are gathered and the name of Mayo is spoken and in particular I know that wherever the Taoiseach is and no matter what company he is in, the name of Mayo is likely to be heard much more than once!
How could we not be proud of Mayo no matter where in Ireland we hail from. This county that gave us our present Taoiseach and last President, the county that gave us the feisty Pirate Queen Granuaile, the champion of the landless poor, Michael Davitt, the entrepreneurial nun Sr Agnes who founded the legendary Foxford Woollen Mills, the great hero of Argentinian independence, Admiral William Brown, the Hollywood beauty Grace Kelly, the maestro of musical talent Louis Walsh and that other ecclesiastical entrepreneur Monsignor James Horan who created the second miracle at Knock when he founded an airport there, no doubt inspired by the big event that occurred when he was a youngster – the day Alcock and Brown chose a bog in Mayo in which to make aviation history.
Who could not be proud of Mayo in all the places around the world where the sons and daughters of Mayo are found, for no other country suffered a scattering or a famine death toll as horrendous as this one. When New York decided to commemorate the Great Hunger it was to Attymass they looked and to the little cottage which had once been a happy home but which was to become the deathbed of the first famine victim. Stone by stone it was removed to New York and recreated there in Battery Park close to the landing jetty of the famine ships. On the night before that very moving monument opened I was watching from a hotel window as the screening was taken down in preparation for the official opening ceremony the next day. Passers-by stood bemused to find a dilapidated 19th century Irish cottage, complete with fallow potato drills in Lower Manhattan and then they read the dedication plaque and Martin and I stood shocked as one by one these random commuters dropped spontaneously to their knees in prayer and respect.
Mayo earned that respect the hard way and her people have kept on earning it at home and abroad. They are the backbone of every Irish club and centre from Brisbane to Boston and from Beijing to Birmingham. The song says “be like a brother and love one another, like the
stout-hearted men from the County Mayo”. The sons and daughters of Mayo have been family to each other, looked out for and looked after one another. They have shown us how to endure, how to work together to overcome the worst of adversity, how to believe in ourselves and how to stand tall in the world no matter what burdens rest on our shoulders.
Generations of Mayo’s children have made themselves unofficial ambassadors for our language, our culture and our heritage and in many countries and in so many spheres they have enriched family life and community life, they have brought great credit to mayo and Ireland through their character and their care.
The theme you have chosen for this year’s convention, “Power by Land and Sea – a Future for our People” could not be more apt. Our extensive Irish family at home and abroad is connected by land and sea and by the huge reservoir of “soft power” that is generated by the intensity of our human connections, by fidelity to heritage and by faith in each other. Mayo’s contribution to that soft but strong power has been huge. Its longevity and freshness was evident in the American Irish Historical Society’s “Crossings” exhibition exhibited in New York earlier this year in collaboration with Mayo County Council and it is nowhere more evident than in the story ofanother Mayoman, Monsignor Patrick Dillon of Ballyhaunis, a respected educator and ecclesiastical figure who founded the Southern Cross newspaper for the Irish community in Argentina, a paper that celebrated its 135th anniversary last year.
Long before there were internet social networks, Mayo people had created their own through the associations represented here today and active across the world. You breathed life into the proverb “Ar scáth a chéile a mhairimid.” Your volunteer spirit sustains it still and I am proud to be among you today, in the company of this year’s Mayo person of the year, Mr. Pat Jennings of the Royal Theatre Castlebar and former recipients of that honour Louis Walsh and our dear old friend that shy and retiring man Joe Kennedy.
As we gather in the name of the people of Mayo let us also be grateful for the haunting and exquisite beauty of this country, never more clear to me than in Easter week of this year when I walked from Ballintubber Abbey to Croagh Patrick along the Tochar Padraig, that ancient pilgrim route of fantastic stories, monuments and even more fantastic scenery. We have another great Mayoman Fr Frank Fahey and his team and the local farm owners to thank for reviving that magnificent route.
I hope that your time together here will be as fulfilling and heartening as those days of mine here in Mayo and that you will leave here with renewed pride, confidence and hope in your beloved native county.
Go n-eirí libh go léir.