REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE MAYO ASSOCIATION OF LONDON TO CELEBRATE ITS 43RD ANNUAL DINNER
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE MAYO ASSOCIATION OF LONDON TO CELEBRATE ITS 43RD ANNUAL DINNER DANCE, LONDON, FRIDAY 25 NOV
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
Dia dhíbh a cháirde go léir anocht. Tá an-áthas orm bheith libh anocht agus táim thar a bheith buíoch as ucht an fáilte is fiche a chuir sibh romhaim agus roimh m’ fhear chéile Máirtín.
Thank you for the warm Mayo welcome. It travels well!! Terry gave me great encouragement too. On the way here he told me about another Mayo Association dinner in a different city in recent years at which the guest of honour spoke for 45 long minutes. In responding to the speech a certain priest soothed the crowd with the words “another couple of those and we wouldn’t feel the winter passing”.
We have a saying in Ireland that two shortens the journey. Irish men and women have made countless journeys, many of them the lonely one-way journeys of the emigrant to new homes, new countries and strange cultures. Those journeys and those lives were made easier to bear by County Associations like yours. Here people could hear familiar voices, listen to the music of their own rich Gaelic culture, talk of news from home and grow in confidence as they learnt to straddle two different worlds.
Mayo men and women came to Britain in their thousands. Their children and grandchildren were born here and today a confident, educated, high achieving generation looks with pride on its forbears who bore poverty and disadvantage with great dignity; who made huge personal sacrifices so that the generations to come would know success and prosperity; and whose compassionate care for one another was the seedbed of this organisation and its sister organisations around the world.
Long before there was even a hint of a Celtic Tiger they believed in Ireland’s great potential. Their pounds and pennies sent back from building sites and doss houses bridged the gap to better times at home. Their championing of Irish culture brought the gift of our sport, music, dance, song, literature and drama to new audiences and new generations, who while born in Britain, grew up with a pride in their family’s Irish roots and identity.
Today they are an intimate part of the success story that is modern Ireland and Irish culture. It’s a global story for we are a global Irish family. Our creative artists in every sphere are as likely to be second generation London, Chicago or New York-born as they are to come from Dublin. The years and lives that seemed so pitifully wasted through emigration have taken on a remarkable new vindication in these times. The tough furrows they ploughed have produced a rich harvest both in Ireland and abroad. A country once blighted by endemic poverty and chronic underachievement has risen to become the toast of Europe, a place of opportunity which now attracts many thousands of emigrants to its shores, a country whose population is growing for the first time since Michael Davitt ‘s death ninety-nine years ago. The centenary of that great Straide man, Mayo man and feisty Irish leader will occur next year and what a centenary celebration it will be as we reflect on today’s Ireland, as we live the future he invested so deeply in. Today’s Ireland is characterised by confidence and prosperity and for the first time in our history we have within our grasp the chance to complete his dream of an Ireland of equals, where everyone’s story matters, where none are consigned to the wasteland of poverty and deprivation.
The London Mayo Association has played its part in keeping that dream and those values alive. I think of the work you do to care for the Irish who have fallen on hard times, the support you give the vulnerable young through the Safe Start programme, brainchild of people like Tom Beisty and Joe Murphy.
I thank and congratulate everyone who has helped to keep the Association and its many charitable works alive and flourishing over these past four decades and more, among them Tony Reilly, who died only last month and whose family are here tonight demonstrating that the baton of care has been conscientiously taken over by a new generation. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dhílis.
To those whose collaborative efforts have given us this great night of craic and camaraderie, a very big thank-you. That is one thing that has never changed - the friendship, the patriotism, the joy in celebrating community, in pulling together to strengthen each other. These have long been the hallmark of the Mayo man and woman wherever in the world they are. There is not an Irish organisation anywhere in the world that does not rely on them as its backbone. May this Association continue to flourish bringing Mayo to London and London to Mayo - via Knock of course!
Comhghairdeas libh arís agus go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.