REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE IRISH AMERICAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE IRISH AMERICAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE ANNUAL IRISH AWARDS AND 40TH ANNIVERSARY
A dhaoine uaisle, is mór an onóir agus an pléisiúr dom bheith anseo anocht ar an ócáid speisialta seo. Míle bhuíochas libh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
Chairman of the Irish American Cultural Institute, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am both delighted and honoured to be part of this double celebration of the Institute’s Annual Irish Awards and its 40th Anniversary.
Jean Monet the great architect of the European Union is reputed to have said that if he was starting again he would start with culture and it is easy to see why. Tedious discussions about coal, steel, about farm subsidies and subsidiarity, important though they are, could never compete with a lament played exquisitely on the uilean pipes, or a beautifully written poem, a stunning sculpture, a comforting patchwork quilt or a night at the theatre. The Arts lighten life’s load, illuminate life’s journey. They create pathways between cultures, bonds between strangers and shared memories between enemies. More importantly the Arts are not merely the fun thing we indulge in when the bread and butter things are done, they are the leaven lifting life from greyness to technicolour, from paralysing self-pity to riotous creativity. Seamus Heaney put it typically well when he said “ The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don’t have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.”
The Irish American Cultural Institute has long been an outstanding champion of the Arts as a place where cultural boundaries are transcended and where curiosity about each other is rewarded by the enormously rich diversity of imagination which the Arts embrace. For four decades, thanks to Dr. Eoin McKeirnan’s founding vision and commitment, you have given support, recognition, encouragement and an important showcase to Irish and Irish-American artistic and cultural initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic. The range of initiatives is phenomenal; from the twin statues in Cobh and New York of Ellis Island’s first recorded Irish emigrant Annie Moore, to the 300 and more historians, actors, musicians, archaeologists, poets and writers from Ireland whom you brought to lecture in America; from the support for the first translation of the Bible into modern Irish and the The Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature, to the IRISH WAY Program which since its introduction has brought 3,000 American high school students to Ireland. And of course the annual awards which also bring us here in celebration.
Warmest congratulations to tonight’s honoured Irish Artisans, each one’s unique giftedness reassuring evidence of the strength of the Arts in Ireland and the sheer brilliance of our best. I hope that the future will bring continued success and recognition in Ireland and beyond. Who knows but that your work might find its way into the Institute’s latest ambitious initiative which has in mind the creation of a Museum of Irish America in Washington, D.C. What a remarkable vindication that would be of all those who left our country with nothing but poems and stories in their heads, a tin whistle in their pocket, a reel and a jig in their dancing feet. These things and more, the rich textured language of an ancient and generous culture, they brought as unwrapped but wonderful gifts to the United States of America and with them they gave a voice to a small island and to its new generations.
I am proud to be Patron of this Institute. I thank the members and Chairman John Walsh, for all you have done for Ireland and for our culture here, and in that country so beloved here, the United States. I wish you a future as successful as these past forty years have been and a very big Happy Birthday.
Gur fada buan sibh, agus go raibh míle maith agaibh.