REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO BANBRIDGE DISTRICT COUNCIL BANBRIDGE MONDAY, 28 JANUARY 2008
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO BANBRIDGE DISTRICT COUNCIL BANBRIDGE MONDAY, 28 JANUARY 2008
I am delighted to be here with you today for this special meeting, and I thank your Chairman, John Hanna, for his kind invitation. Banbridge has always been an important staging post on the road between Belfast and Dublin as I know well from the many days I stopped off en route from Belfast to Rostrevor to do my shopping. Today the road to and from Banbridge is busier than ever with the traffic of commerce, friendship, tourism and social exchange that reflects the new dispensation that is building a fresh neighbourliness and fresh opportunity across this island.
I’m here at the beginning of a new year and it is a year very different in temper and tone from the years that have gone before. This year there is well-founded hope in people’s hearts and while the mountain of pain and waste is still an arduous and heartbreaking climb for many people, we can feel and see that there is a developing spirit of engagement with one another out of which can come at last a future rooted in peace, prosperity and good neighbourliness.
On 8 May last, shared devolved government returned to take centre stage in the affairs of Northern Ireland. It is supported by and it represents both communities. The iconic image of 2007 has to be that of the First and Deputy First Ministers working respectfully together, giving the leadership that is allowing a new culture of partnership and friendship to grow. The journey to this time has been arduous and the cost has been high. It has taken a lot of courage in a lot of places and I commend those of you working here within Banbridge Council for all you have done and are doing to cultivate and to sustain this hard-earned opportunity for a better future.
As Northern Ireland’s Executive sets down the exciting but sure to be challenging road ahead you know that your neighbours south of the border are willing you on to great success. The Irish Government is clearly committed to supporting economic growth in Northern Ireland and to doing so in practical and tangible ways. The largest and most ambitious cross-border project ever undertaken on this island will see the Irish Government investing some £400 million in Northern Ireland’s roads infrastructure. Other partnerships, in energy, healthcare, trade, tourism, education and in developing the economies in the border regions are also being developed so that potential once lost through conflict, mistrust or fear can at last reveal itself.
Banbridge has a rich history of creativity and invention. The legendary Nobel prize winning scientist, Ernest Walton, was schooled here. John Butler Yeats, painter and father of another world-renowned Nobel Laureate, was born here. This is the homeland of the Brontë family and I am told it is the place that pioneered the underpass - not that William Dargan’s “Cut” was done to ease traffic congestion but to make life easier for the horses that were tired out by the hill.
Stories such as this - of endeavour, imagination and excellence - abound in Northern Ireland’s history and they will be joined by many more in the years ahead as young people stay and put their skills and talents to work in a peaceful and energising atmosphere. As the best educated generation ever we know they will be particularly good at problem solving and at the innovation and entrepreneurialism that will bring the best economic, political and social dividends.
Behind the economics and the politics we know there is still much work to be done, to come to terms with the past and in particular its many unhealed wounds. It is a responsibility shared widely and calling for great patience, compassion and attentive listening. As the evidence unfolds that we are at last truly awakening in Joyce’s words, from the nightmare of history, I hope more and more of those still living the nightmare will gather the energy to hope again and to live more fully again. I have spoken to many of them and have been privileged to listen to stories of men and women so broken by loss that these days of fresh hope seem utterly surreal to them. Yet they too yearn for some peace of heart and mind for themselves and especially for their children and grandchildren.
It is the children and their yet unlived lives that most challenge us to do what it takes to make the future a place where all feel safe, respected and proud. There was a time when that seemed a naïve hope. Today it is happening before our very eyes - and not just our eyes. We are not the only people living with the curse of conflict. Around the world whether in Jerusalem or Darfur, whether in Zimbabwe or Iraq, wherever people are tempted to sink deeply into despair, the story of Northern Ireland and its transcendence of conflict will, I hope, spur on the peacemakers to keep on trying as they did here.
Now in this new year we do what we can and must to consolidate the peace and open the gates to long-term stability and prosperity. You who have been elected by the people and who work for the people of this district take their ambitions and hopes and translate them into reality. It is a long, long time since the backdrop to your work was as heartening as it is today and I wish each of you every success as you work diligently to make Banbridge and its hinterland the best it can be, a byword for outstanding achievement. Thank you for your invitation and welcome.