REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ST. BRIGID’S DAY LECTURE, BELFAST ‘IRELAND’S ROLE IN THE WORLD’
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ST. BRIGID’S DAY LECTURE, BELFAST ‘IRELAND’S ROLE IN THE WORLD’ THURSDAY, 22ND FEBRUARY 2007
Dia, is Muire agus Brighid dibh go leir
Good evening everybody,
It’s good to be back in my home city and a warm thank you to my old friend
Dr. Ambrose Macaulay for the invitation to give the Inaugural St. Brigid’s Day Lecture. It brings me back to the parish where Martin and I set up our first home when we married, though that was in the days when this magnificent award winning church was not even the makings of a rumour. Yet here it is, the work of hands and hearts that dared to dream and then dared to do, to deliver the dream.
Every community needs its dreamers and its doers, the people who set an agenda for the advancement of humanity and no matter how difficult, plan the journey and then set out on it.
St. Brigid was, of course, one of the best early examples of both dreamer and doer and since it is in her name and honour that we gather this evening I thought this inaugural lecture should try to see if there is anything in her story that helps us to see the choices and dilemmas of our own times more clearly. It isn’t the easiest task for there is nearly as much debate about her past as there is about our future. There is the mystery of her exact origins. Was she from a noble family or a poor family or was she from both. Was she in fact the slave child of a slave mother whose father was the slave master? Was she born in Louth or Kildare? Since the GAA didn’t exist in those days there is no county jersey to judge her by! Was she a Catholic or a Protestant – thank God we don’t have to dither over that since neither category then existed and she is part of the shared inheritance of all Christians on these islands and much further afield for she gave her name to Scotland’s Kilbride, England’s Brideswell, Wales Llansantaffraid and churches throughout Europe.
But there is no mystery whatever about her values, her principles and her impact. Christianity was new to her, to her family and to Ireland. People were suspicious of its new fangled ideas and fearful of change. Brigid lived in tempestuous times with many quarrelsome elements, many sides to be taken. The past and present were familiar territory to her but the future was where her heart lay for that was the only place she could hope to reconcile the fragmented world around her.
She deeply respected all she had been shaped by, each thread of that web of diverse influences around her and her times, pagan, druidic, celtic, pictish, Christian but she was scandalised by the cyclical waste of human endeavour, consumed by incessant squabbles. The commandment to love one another, to see Christ in every human person, whether saint or sinner, offered to her a way through all the chaos and she could see with exasperating lucidity the endless possibilities for a humanly uplifting future dramatically energised by concord rather than drained by conflict. She was legendary for her limitless generosity though it didn’t always make her popular. Her mother had a less than encouraging view when every scrap of food for the house was regularly given away. Her father was not too enthusiastic about his sword being gifted to a stranger and she probably overdid it when she gave her friends clothes away because there was nothing else left to give.
But always according to the stories her kindness was rewarded by a remarkable, even miraculous multiplication of the very things she had given away. Every story about her affirms the view that unconditional love, forgiveness and kindness bring their own wealth of unforeseen and abundant rewards. It was faith in that mathematical miracle that inspired her entire life, her entire being and her doing, as she provoked her generation to a new vision for themselves in both their inward and outward lives. From all around Ireland and abroad people flocked to her many foundations attracted by the radical integrity of her plan and its careful yet distinct step away from the past into a more inclusive, a braver future. So powerfully did her life impact on her own times that fifteen hundred years later she towers over Irish history, pipped only at the post of pre-eminence by St. Patrick, the most celebrated emigrant ever to grace Ireland’s shores.
We remember her especially at the beginning of February each year and her feast day February 1st is regarded as the harbinger of spring, a time of restless fresh energy as nature surprises us yet again with her panache, verve and colour after the suspended activity of winter.
Some of you will remember the well worn lines from Anton Ó Raftery’s famous poem so often recited on or around St. Brigid’s Day –
Anois teacht an Earraigh beidh an lá dul chun síneadh,
Is tar eis na féile Bríde ardóidh mé mo sheol.
(Ó chuir mé i mo cheann é ní stopfaidh me choíche
Go seasfaidh mé thíos i lár Chondae Mhaigh Eo).
“Now Spring is coming and the days are lengthening, and after Brigid’s feast day I’ll hoist up my sails … ”
I never hear those words without feeling a quiver of excitement at the new possibilities in those yet unlived long days up ahead.
Here in Northern Ireland, these days and weeks of early spring are dominated by a clear, well constructed plan for a new future to be characterised by concord rather than conflict.
It too calls for taking a careful but distinctive step away from the past to a future where difference can be a source of discovery rather than discord. Many people are now deliberating, debating and moving towards their crucial individual decision.
A stanza from a Derek Mahon poem captures the struggle for clarity well…
"…….Spray-blind
We leave here the infancy of the race,
Unsure among the pitching surfaces,
Whether the future lies before us or behind".
Brigid’s era is characterised by the clarity and energy with which she and her companions set out on their then unique and mould breaking journey into an uncertain future. Every day vindicated her risk-laden choices for, from one end of Ireland to another, life was never the same again and for the poor, the forgotten, the lonely, the outcast it was a much better place than they had ever previously known.
Already today’s present is a much better place than many of us have ever known, thanks to the courageous efforts, the good decisions, the risks taken by so many many people most of whom will never be known or acknowledged, except in the vindication of their efforts by the success of the future they have invested so much in. The bitter politics of partition and sectarianism which bedevilled almost a century have been emphatically put to rest by the Good Friday Agreement, the blueprint for a just and fair democracy here, at peace with itself and its neighbours. The IRA’s ending of its armed campaign and Sinn Fein’s endorsement of policing and the rule of law have cleared the way for a new paradigm of partnership based devolution which will enjoy considerable encouragement and support from both the Dublin and Westminster governments, the European Union, the United States and the many nations who have actively willed the peace process on to success. That radical alteration to the political landscape will be occurring within an already signally altered wider context, the characteristics of which augur well for the future for all those jurisdictions who share the island.
The Irish and British governments are enjoying the friendliest and most effective relationship ever experienced in the history of these islands. Three decades of sharing the same table in Brussels, of working together on many common issues including the peace process have led to a closeness that can still accommodate competition or differences of opinion in some areas while increasing cooperation in others. Among the major changes to the ambient landscape is the transformation of the Republic of Ireland from the poor, under-achieving nation of low employment and high emigration that joined the European Union thirty years ago to today’s wealthy, multicultural and developed nation. Today the Republic is ranked ninth out of the world’s 177 countries in terms of human development and second in the world in terms of per capita GDP; it is soon to become a net contributor to the European Union and one of the biggest per capita global contributors to development aid for the world’s poor. Ireland’s greatest natural resource always lay in the brainpower of its people but not until the coming of free second and third level education, in the latter quarter of the last century, was that resource properly harvested and harnessed.
Now a confident, high-achieving, highly educated “can do” generation has stepped out of the long shadows of the past and rung changes so profound that they have set their country on the most exhilarating journey of peace and prosperity and power that any generation has ever known. Ahead of them is a very clear agenda, of developing Ireland’s fullest potential at home and abroad.
For them there is absolutely no doubt that the future lies before and not behind. They relish the prospect of being part of the first generation to see what can be achieved when peace, prosperity and partnership are consolidated in both parts of this island.
Ireland’s stellar economic success has been underpinned by its model of social partnership.
For twenty years now all the major sectors in Irish life, the Government, business, trade unions, farmers, community and voluntary organisations have regularly hammered out agreements which have, through a culture of dialogue, restructured the economy, promoted industrial stability, enhanced productivity, raised living standards, and increased social inclusion. But of course these are still early years in the transformation process and there is a distance to travel before everyone enjoys the mainstream and no one is left on the margins. But as the old Irish sean-fhocal says – two shortens the journey and last year the social partners agreed to a plan called ‘Towards 2016’ which sets out their shared vision for an inclusive society and the steps needed to reach it.
Last month the Irish Government announced a National Development Plan to take the country to the year 2013. 184 billion euro will be spent on improving the social, educational, environmental and economic infrastructure, bringing a hugely improved quality of life and opportunity to Ireland’s citizens. Our prosperous nation, now at the forefront of the first world, has a deep and abiding third world memory and a long history of outreach to the world’s poor. Last September, Ireland launched its first White Paper on Irish Aid to the developing world. As the document says “ The Irish people expect a stronger Ireland to help build a fairer world.” By 2012 the Irish Aid budget will stand at over one and a half billion euro bringing help and hope to the world’s most overlooked and vulnerable citizens. The newly created Conflict Analysis and Resolution Support Unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs is designed to sharply enhance Ireland’s role in international conflict prevention and resolution, a role well suited to Ireland’s experience through our own peace process, as well as the distinctive role we have forged in the international arena as peacemakers, multilateralists, strong supporters of the United nations, champions of disarmament, of decolonisation and of the poor.
Ireland, seen as the European Union’s success story par excellence, is on a dramatic journey forward that is well underway and gathering speed. Another important changing backdrop is the phenomenal success of the European Union in making colleagues and partners of the bitter enemies who emerged from the ruins of the Second World War, for the Union is itself tangible evidence of the healing and stabilising power of respectful dialogue and partnership. It is evidence, too, of the new energies and synergies released in the absence of conflict and in the presence of consensus. Could the founding fathers of the treaty of Rome have imagined today’s membership of 27 nations, the queue to join, the fall of communism, the end of the Cold War, the Velvet revolutions, the many impossibles that suddenly have become possible because good people stood together, worked together and despite their appalling past hurts, and because of their appalling past hurts, focussed on the future, on democracy on human rights, on dialogue and on partnership.
This year we celebrate fifty years of the Union and the motto for this great Golden Jubilee is the simple catchphrase “Together” or “le Chéile” in Irish. It is particularly appropriate to these times in Ireland, for it summarises succinctly and precisely the desire we have to work well with our European neighbours to bring prosperity throughout the Union, our desire to work happily and respectfully with each other at home and with the many welcome emigrants who are investing their lives in Ireland’s future, and the profound desire we have to work with our neighbours in Northern Ireland to consolidate this hard won and costly peace, and promote sensible cooperation where it is of mutual benefit to our respective citizens.
There are many current examples of such cooperation from the success of Tourism Ireland to the Single Electricity Market but I want to look at one very human example which I was privileged to witness recently. Can you imagine living with deafness and what a tough life it is to be deaf in a world so geared to the hearing. Can you imagine the isolation and lonliness of living with the double disability of deafness and mental illness? Because the numbers of deaf suffering mental illness are relatively small and geographically scattered there was not a sufficient critical mass, either North or South, to allow the development of a special service for them in either jurisdiction. So they just kept on suffering in silence until the deaf associations and health bodies on both sides of the border began to realise that if they offered the service on an all-island basis it could happen, and it did. You had to be at the launch, just a few months ago to see the happiness radiating from those whose lives will be transformed by access to a customised, deaf-friendly, sign-language intelligent, psychiatric service. It’s just one example, but in a very human way it shows the life‑enhancing power of good neighbourliness and it is that life-enhancing power we wish to develop together in the years ahead.
This year marks the 90th Anniversary of the battle at Messines in Belgium when Protestant and Catholic, Northerner and Southerner, fought and died together as comrades in those cruel summer months between June and August 1917. Much work has gone into reconciling old memories and into creating opportunities to share them. There is now a beautiful Irish tower at Messines which gathers those memories together and holds them in sacred trust for all of us who are gifted with the life and hope that those young men who lie in Flanders fields were denied by early death. Last year the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was marked in Dublin by the first official commemoration and I have no doubt that the Messines commemoration will be shared in ways that would have been impossible before now.
For ten years now Aras an Uachtarain has been the only place on the island of Ireland to offer an official commemoration of that major history changing episode the battle of the Boyne and to offer it jointly to both Williamite and Jacobite traditions. On Sunday next the English rugby team which stayed famously faithful to Dublin throughout the Troubles will line out in Croke Park, heartland of the GAA but now a temporary refuge for soccer and rugby while they await the renovation of Landsdowne. That is what good neighbours do! Haven’t Harlequins rugby club been showing similar good neighbourliness to St. Bride’s GAA for some time now.
Big steps, small steps, edging us closer to triumph over our island’s long history of adversity and enmity and bringing us closer to the friendships we could have had and should have had, to the reborn opportunities we once missed and wasted, to the mutual trust that has reluctantly begun to emerge from winter’s hard frost.
“Anois teacht an Earraigh beidh an lá dul chun síneadh,
Is tar eis na féile Bríde ardóidh mé mo sheol.”
“Now Spring is coming and the days are lengthening, and after Brigid’s feast day I’ll hoist up my sails…”.
The sails are up, the tide is right, now we need the wind at our backs. The men and women of the future may not remember us in 1500 years time as we remember Brigid, but I’d settle for having our children, and their children, speak proudly of the peace and prosperity they enjoy because of decisions made in the here and now.
If, like Brigid, you believe in prayer then maybe we should all pray that peace and partnership will take hold right across this land, spreading like Brigid’s famous blanket, glowing like her famous fire, growing like her famous oak, so that the future truly does lie in front of us and not behind.
Thank you all very much.