REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE, GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL, THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY, 2007
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE, GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL, THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY, 2007
Lord Provost and Mr. Cameron
Ambassador and Mrs. O’Ceallaigh
Consul General Manahan
Distinguished Guests
Dia dhíbh, a cháirde go léir. Tá mé iontach sásta bheith anseo libh tráthnona.
I have been coming to Scotland and to Glasgow in particular for well over forty years and always it has been like leaving home in Ireland only to arrive home in Scotland. Centuries ago the very name Scotland was used to identify both Ireland and Scotland because they were both the land of the Gael. Don’t worry, I am not here to undo the work of Pope Leo the tenth and claim back the name for Ireland but I am here to encourage a new generation to radically energise and refresh those ancient ties of kinship and grow them into a formidable, modern network of culture and commerce.
Tonight’s event brings together key influencers and decision-makers who have the power to help to shape future relationships and opportunities between our two nations and I am deeply grateful to the Lord Provost and members of Glasgow City Council for the wonderful setting, the gracious welcome and the chance for friendship-building that this occasion provides.
Last November in Dublin, Mr Jack McConnell MSP, the First Minister of Scotland and our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern agreed the first ever Joint Declaration between Scotland and Ireland. It was an historic moment and a powerful statement of intent as both Ireland and Scotland set out a shared agenda for the future - focusing on the potential for co-operation and partnership between us.
Last October, Mr George Reid MSP, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, led a cross-party delegation on his first official visit to Ireland. On their return, they released a significant report recording their interest in co-operating more closely with Ireland across many issues of mutual interest and concern. These include business, EU Structural Funds, renewable energy, education, transport, tourism, culture and increased inter-parliamentary engagement through the British Irish Inter-parliamentary Body.
We should be very clear just how mutually interlaced our contemporary lives already are. The trading corridor between our two countries is worth an estimated €2.5 billion per annum and so is of critical importance to both our economies. We communicate easily and fluently with one another even when speaking English though we share the Gaelic/Gallic language. As next-door neighbours we enjoy a considerable level of cultural compatibility for we have been to-ing and fro-ing, intermarrying and intermingling for centuries. We are partners in the European Union. We each have first-rate education systems that are the envy of many and we have ambitious populations, the best educated ever in our respective histories, who want to see the fullest potential of themselves and their countries revealed and blossoming. We now have the formal structures in place and the institutional support for the coherent and planned development of our relationships. We have peace on the island of Ireland and relationships between Ireland and Great Britain are at their healthiest and friendliest in history. Our contemporary context therefore is probably the most exciting our peoples have ever known for it is giddy with potential just waiting to be harvested.
The role of entrepreneurs in turning that potential into prosperity is well-evidenced in this room. Many of the Irish companies represented here this evening have a full-time presence in Scotland and over the thirty years that Enterprise Ireland, the trade and technology board of the Irish government, has been working here in Glasgow, the links between Irish and Scottish companies have grown dramatically and thanks to the successes already achieved, it is becoming more and more evident that there is huge scope for joint impact internationally. Scottish and Irish companies are today leading the way across global sectors such as financial services, life sciences, environmental & renewable energy, digital media and construction and it is very encouraging to see leaders of those dynamic sectors in both Ireland and Scotland so well represented here tonight.
For newer or smaller businesses taking their first steps abroad, links of culture and language make Ireland and Scotland obvious places to start but the attractions go considerably deeper. Ireland has one of the youngest populations in Europe with over 36% under the age of 25. That demographic trend alone means we will continue to have a capacity for growth far ahead of our EU partners. Seven out of ten of our school-leavers go on to higher education and nowadays they stay in Ireland progressing easily and quickly into the workforce.
The bad old days of high unemployment and mass emigration have given way to virtually full employment and considerable inward migration. Our citizens have high consumer power – in fact exports from Britain to Ireland are more than British exports to India, China, Mexico and Brazil added together and doubled. Inward investors have also been attracted by our favourable corporate tax environment and by the success of our model of social partnership in creating a climate of stable industrial relations. Ireland’s ambition to be a first-rate knowledge-driven economy sits very comfortably with Scotland’s education-rich culture. In particular, the launch of our new Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation for the period 2006-2013, which involves an investment of €3.8 billion, offers tremendous scope, in fact an open invitation for collaborations between universities, research institutes and the industrial sectors in Ireland and Scotland.
Concepts like collaboration, partnership, joint venture are underpinned by something that the Gael does well whether in Ireland or Scotland - and that is building the friendships on which so many other things rest easily, the trust needed for doing business, the curiosity needed for explorations of each other’s cultures and countries, the networks needed to sustain and nourish healthy relationships.
Tomorrow, I will visit Coatbridge to meet the descendants of the many who took the emigrant boat from Ireland in the past. They made their lives here in this city too, investing their blood and sweat and their hopes in the future of Scotland. Their descendants love Ireland and they love their homeland Scotland. They remind us that we are, between us, the custodians of a remarkable Gaelic cultural heritage, a heritage that a new generation is beginning to explore and to renew. A couple of months ago in Edinburgh I spoke at the first Scotland and Ireland Storytelling and Film Festivals, REEL 2006. The second Reel Festival will come to Ireland where already it is generating huge interest and, meanwhile, an exciting new partnership is evolving between Screen Academy Scotland, which represents Napier University, Edinburgh College of Art and the National Film School of Ireland (IADT). Already among Gaelic-speakers in both countries there has been a steady process of reconnecting, best exemplified by the Columba Initiative and the wonderful Leabhar Mór, that showcase of Gaelic art, poetry, writing and calligraphy drawn from the best of Irish and Scottish talent. The book begins with a telling quotation from Sorley MacLean that could be a signal of the future we have to look forward to.
-An fheile
Nach do reub an cuan
Nach do mhill lile Bliadhna
Buaidh a Ghaidheil buan
… the humanity
That the sea did not tear,
That a thousand years did not spoil;
The quality of the Gael permanent.
Looking ahead, the quality of the Gael has never been more impressive, for while we draw from the ancient wells of a phenomenally rich culture that has made its mark on the globe today, the globe returns the compliment as our citizens, drawn now from many nations, faiths and cultures, work together to build impressive, egalitarian democracies, exemplars in a world where too many still take emigrant boats to escape poverty, disease and oppression.
For both Scotland and Ireland, our future is the place of most interest for us because that is where we will prove the worth of this generation of Irish and Scottish men and women. No generation before now has had such a ring of confidence about it. None has had the education, the opportunity, the peace or the freedom that characterises 21st century Ireland and Scotland. The landscape of this city, the ambition of this city testify to these changed times and this new future. We wish you well in your bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games and I am looking forward to visiting Kelvingrove, a jewel in Glasgow’s cultural crown.
It seems to me there is another Leabhar Mór or Great Book to be written in the century that stretches out before us - there are certainly great stories in the making, of men and women in Ireland and Scotland whose genius harnessed together revealed the truest and best story either country has ever told.
Go n-éirí go geal libh ‘s go raibh maith agaibh.
Thank you.