REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE AWARD OF AN HONORARY DOCTORATE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE AWARD OF AN HONORARY DOCTORATE BY THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS
Dia dhíbh a chairde, Is mór an pleisuir dom bheith anseo i bhúr measc anocht, agus ba mhaith liom mo fhíorbhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an chuireadh agus an onoir speisialta seo on Colaiste Rioga na Mainlea in Eireann. I was only a short time in office in 1998 when this College made me an Honorary fellow as it had all previous Presidents back to Sean T O’Kelly. I was touched then by your kindness, have often since been the recipient of your hospitality and tonight in the closing months of my tenure of Presidential Office, I am deeply touched by the award of this, the first honorary doctorate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
It’s hard to imagine that this institution with its history that spans the 18th, 19th 20th and 21st centuries could have many firsts left to achieve. Yet the College’s recent success in petitioning the Minister for Education to grant it independent degree awarding status was, I am sure, as thrilling as was the success of its predecessor the Dublin Society of Surgeons when in 1781 it petitioned the Lord Lieutenant to be incorporated separately from the barbers. Both processes involved extensive scrutiny and assessment and I warmly congratulate the College on achieving degree-awarding status. It is a particular pleasure to receive the first honorary degree though it must be a little galling for my daughter who is a student of this College to see her mother graduate before her and with so little effort on my part.
The still reasonably recent celebrations of the 225th anniversary of your Charter and the 200th anniversary of moving to the St. Stephen’s Green landmark site rightly gave a celebratory focus to the past, but tonight is a firm statement of intent about the future and already the next two centuries at RCSI are off to a good start!
This College has seen many students, many staff and many Irelands come and go but a unifying thread holds them all and it is summarised in the motto which is the charism of this college, “consilio manuque”- scholarship and dexterity.
The Class of 2011 have invested deeply and well in scholarship and dexterity and they join the ranks of generations of ambassadors for the RCSI as they leave here with much more than its parchments and certificates – they leave with its imprint and they will carry that to their professional lives and through their professional lives. I congratulate each one and wish you well as you graduate into guardianship of a very sacred trust of care for the human beings who seek your professional help and care for the profession which has expressed its trust in you this day. No two of you will travel the same life’s journey but individually and collectively you will write new chapters in the history of the healing arts.
Those chapters will be written all over the world for the international and multicultural character of RCSI was set in stone long before multiculturalism was an acknowledged term in Ireland.
This College has effected a formidable global ambassadorship for Irish medical education with students and graduates from all over the world and in more recent years with hugely successful campuses in Dubai, Malaysia and Bahrain. Those of us privileged, like me, to have seen that wonderful facility in Bahrain will know of the heartache generated by this period of civil unrest in that beautiful island. I look forward to the state of emergency being lifted in the timeframe announced and to the respectful consideration of human rights and fundamental freedoms including those of the medical personnel who care for the injured.
It was Yeats who said that education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. That passion is so often transmitted by a good teacher and so this evening we should be grateful for the faculty of RCSI and their role in the professional formation that takes the raw, enthusiastic student and makes of him and her a consummate professional and a professional whose passion for this vocation never diminishes over a lifetime.
Families and friends will have watched these years of transformation with pride. The ritual of this week’s graduation ceremonies is a time of shared satisfaction, as graduates, families and teachers gather to mark the day when a new door opened and let the future in. And as Pope John Paul 11 said - “the future starts today, not tomorrow.” Enjoy it well. You will be relieved to hear that as the sister, daughter and niece of the successors to those barbers, nowadays known as unisex hairdressers, I do not intend in retirement to practice either profession.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.