REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE AUSTRALIAN IRELAND FUND DINNER
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE AUSTRALIAN IRELAND FUND DINNER, SYDNEY FRIDAY, 14 MARCH, 2003
A chairde. Tá lúcháir mhór orm bheith libh tráthnóna ag an tionól seo de Ghaeil agus de chairde na hÉireann. Míle buíochas libh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you Charles for your warm words of welcome. I have been looking forward to meeting again with the distinguished members of the Australian Ireland Fund, but this magnificent venue – the Opera House – makes the occasion even more magical. My first State visit as President of Ireland was to Australia in 1998 and of course Martin and I fell in love with its welcoming people and fascinating landscape. We feel very privileged to have this second opportunity to experience once again that unique warm welcome that so quickly makes friends of strangers.
But then again it is care for the stranger that is the hallmark of the Ireland Funds. Here in Australia thousands of miles away from lives lived on the streets of Belfast or Omagh or Dublin, you dare to care deeply about the future and the quality of life of men, women and children whose lives have been blighted by conflict and exclusion. It is a remarkable and a miraculous thing that such goodness exists and since the inception of the Ireland Funds in 1976, there has been a steady trail of little miracles layering up new hope and new opportunities, making tangible changes in the lives of vulnerable communities.
I have seen the results of your work, watched it transform individuals and communities, giving confidence where there was once despair, bringing reconciliation where there was only bitterness, creating a future to look forward to where there was once only a grim past that kept on repeating itself relentlessly. Month in and month out, I meet the people who owe you a debt that can never be repaid and I know that they would wish me to give you their heartfelt thanks just as I give you my own. You have helped them to grow strong, resourceful and resilient and you have helped to reinforce the very fabric of civic society on the island of Ireland, but particularly in Northern Ireland, my home province and of course, the main focus of the Australian Ireland Fund.
The long-term commitment of the Ireland Fund is especially important in Northern Ireland, because the process of peace and reconciliation is not a work of weeks or months or years, but more likely of generations. The poet Yeats got in right when in the much more benign context of the Lake Isle of Innisfree he said “for peace comes dropping slow”.
There is an old Irish expression - two shortens the road - and you have without the remotest doubt helped shorten the road to peace, prosperity and partnership in Ireland. We have been deeply blessed to have such good friends. We know that you owe us nothing, that despite busy lives and many worthy competing causes you decide to choose the cause of Ireland’s future. Your choice has helped change the course of our history. For too many generations our greatest natural resource, the genius of our people, was subverted by the legacy of conflict, the poison of sectarianism, the paralysis of poverty, the absence of a spirit of all-island cooperation, the forced emigration of so many of our people. I grew up in that world but my children thankfully are growing up in an Ireland where that grim legacy is dwindling, vanishing before our eyes. There is a new spirit driving towards openness, tolerance, forgiveness and partnership and though it still frightens some, it has captured a critical mass of hearts. Among its staunchest champions are those who first learnt the power of partnership through the vital work of reconciliation undertaken by the Ireland Funds.
You should take righteous pride in the many Australian Ireland Fund projects which are reinvigorating the lives of communities in Northern Ireland and of course your invaluable support for the establishment of a Chair of Modern Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales ensures that despite the distance between our two worlds, we will always be entwined in kinship and the mutual curiosity that sustains it.
The message of the Ireland Funds is powerful, emphatic and enduring. It tells us that we do not have to be prisoners of the past and that we are not alone as we travel the hard road to a humanly decent future for all who share the island of Ireland. In eleven countries, across five continents, there are friends willing us on to be the first generation to reveal the full potential of peace, justice, inclusion and partnership. No other generation has come as close as we now are to consciously turning our backs on a fragmented past and joining each other in a shared future. No other generation owes its good friends so much.
On behalf of the people of Ireland, I offer our sincere thanks to your distinguished Chair, Charles Curran and to the Directors, Governors, Benefactors and Sponsors of the Ireland Fund, the best friends Ireland could have.
Mo bhuíochas libh arís as bhur gcuidiú agus bhur dtacaíocht a bhíonn I gcónaí fial agus flaithiúil. Cabhraíonn sé go mór agus muid i mbun oibre ar son na síochána agus na cothromaíochta in Éirinn.