SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY MCALEESE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH
SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY MCALEESE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH, MONDAY, 2ND DECEMBER 2002
Is-Ganghellor
Anwyll gyfeillion
Dia dhíbh go léir. Is é onóir mór dom bheith anseo libh in Aberystwyth inniu. Mo bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
Thank you, Vice Chancellor, for your kind words of welcome. I am delighted that my first official visit as President of Ireland to Wales, has brought me to this University so popular with Irish students and so legendary as a vibrant heartland of Welsh culture.
It is not of course my first visit to Wales. I suspect I am the only President of Ireland to have trekked every inch of the Black Mountains on horseback in the driving snow, but possibly not the first to explain to three impatient youngsters anxious for toy and sweet shops why there are so many book shops in Hay on Wye. Like many other Irish visitors I have often travelled the short distance between us and been entranced by this magical ancient culture, this small land with a big personality, a proud member of the Celtic family of nations to which Ireland also belongs.
Although we share that heritage, our branches of the Celtic family separated long ago and our languages, though closely related, have considerable differences. This has proved to be fortunate for scholars, as An Gaeilge and Y Gwmraeg (Uh Gum-ryge) (Welsh) are the two principal survivors representing a whole family of languages and peoples, most of which have vanished or been assimilated into other cultures.
Our early stories tend to indicate a rather robust interplay between the Irish and the Welsh and these were the days long before Rugby Union. Niall of the Nine Hostages and other Irish raiders cruised up and down these shores, and some coastal parts of Pembroke and Gwynedd were even settled by Irish people in those years. Among the captives taken to Ireland was of course Saint Patrick. Many other places claim our nation’s great saint but the Irish are reasonably content to acknowledge his Welsh and therefore Celtic heritage - the alternatives being regarded as considerably less attractive. But typically we balance the story by claiming that your great patron St. David was born of an Irish mother and died in Wexford in the arms of St. Aidan of Ferns. When it comes to our iconic stories we prefer the old maxim, never mind the facts stick to the legend.
I hope you won’t regard it as indelicate if I remind you that in the twelfth century, Ireland was invaded from Wales by the people we call Cambro-Normans, led by the Earl of Pembroke, known in Ireland as Strongbow. It is a curious footnote that the centuries of ‘English’ rule in Ireland happened to begin and end with Welshmen, for 750 years later it was with David Lloyd George that we negotiated our independence. Among the followers of Strongbow was Giraldus Cambrensis - Gerald of Wales - who wrote a history of the conquest as well as descriptions of both Ireland and Wales in that period. Gerald rather ecumenically regarded both Welsh and Irish with the same jaundiced eye of an invader - he thought us both barbarians but although far from objective, his writings represent almost the first appearance of a genuine history and chronicle of our two nations, a vivid snapshot of our two societies before the forces of history altered them forever.
The foundation here in Aberystwyth in 1872 of what was to become the University of Wales marks an important early step in the dawning of a reinvigorated Welsh cultural assertiveness. Welsh identity, culture and language, came into a new focus and this University became one of the key institutions defining modern Wales. The National Library of Wales, which I very much look forward to visiting later today, became another in the early 1900’s.
Another great Welsh institution in Aberystwyth and much admired in Ireland is of course the National Eisteddfod, where the vitality of literature in Welsh is powerfully displayed every year. We in Ireland have huge respect for your success in promoting the Welsh language and indeed it was your determination and courage in setting up S4C which greatly inspired the founding of our own Irish language channel TG4 in 1995. It is a matter of considerable pride to us that the two channels work very closely together on cultural programmes.
This University is owed a huge debt of gratitude by the Irish people for the way in which your commitment to the Welsh language has extended its embrace to include the wider Celtic dimension and Irish in particular. Thirty-five years ago in a convent school in Belfast, I remember my surprise as we filled in our UCAS forms and I discovered for the first time your fidelity to and championing of the Irish language, from friends who went on to become graduates of this University. We are grateful too for the considerable contribution to Irish scholarship of the late Professor Caerwyn Williams, who was Professor of Irish here until 1979. His landmark work ‘The Irish Literary Tradition’, published first in Welsh and later in Irish and then English opened up that tradition to a new generation of scholars. You have made the health and wellbeing of the Celtic languages your concern, your sacred stewardship.
Basking in the glow from the campfires of our Celtic ancestors is of itself fascinating and, telling though it is, is no guarantee that we are both fully utilizing the potential for growing the bonds of commerce and industry which are the lifeblood of our modern and ambitious economies. We are both small European nations in a Union soon to be greatly enlarged and in which small nations will predominate. It is a competitive world we face into and as the old Irish proverb says - two shortens the road. Strategic partnerships are the building blocks of the kind of future we both aspire to, a future where our voices are big on the world stage, where we punch above our weight as our two nations always have, and where our historic bonds of kinship are adapted by a new generation into the fuel that generates creative alliances across many fields of endeavour from academia to board room. The framework within which those alliances can be made and can flourish is already taking shape thanks to four main factors.
Firstly, the relationship between the British and Irish Governments has been transformed in recent years into one of mutual trust and respect. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is the most formidable showcase of that transformation. It copper- fastens the historic partnership between the two Governments in pursuit of the common goal of peace with justice. Full implementation presents considerable ongoing but not insurmountable challenges. The two governments and virtually all the main political parties are deeply committed to resolving the outstanding issues and I know that we will continue to press forward with this important work in the knowledge that it remains the only way of delivering a future to be proud of, the future deeply yearned for by the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s citizens. In this context, I would like to pay tribute to a great Welsh friend of Ireland, your former Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, whom we are delighted to be working with again in his new role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. As many of you may know, he played a very important role in the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and indeed I understand he derived some amusement from representing the British Government as a Welshman called Murphy.
One element of the Agreement of particular significance to Wales and Ireland has been the establishment of the British-Irish Council, an invaluable forum for exchange and consultation on a whole range of issues of common concern, including the problems of social inclusion, in which Wales and Scotland have taken a leading role. I understand that the Welsh Assembly Government is also undertaking important work on the issue of minority and lesser-used languages within the Council, and we look forward to a future summit meeting here in Wales.
The second factor driving a new context for the evolving realtionship between Ireland and Wales has of course been the establishment of the devolved National Assembly and Government in Wales. This has been an exciting development for Wales, and one we have watched with great interest. I am looking forward to visiting the National Assembly tomorrow. Devolution has also provided us with a partner for new links at intergovernmental level, to add to the cultural and commercial connections which already exist between us. We moved quickly to put those links on a formal level, with the establishment of a Consulate-General of Ireland in Cardiff even before the Assembly had come into being. Consul General Jim Carroll and his staff are our first resource in building relationships with all levels of Welsh life, and informing ourselves about the new Wales.
The third factor which has put our relationship on a new footing is the transformation of our economic situation. In a decade Ireland has surged forward to join the first rank economies of Europe, with record growth rates and a labour shortage instead of once crippling unemployment. The change has been rapid and astonishing, but was based on years of consistent economic policies which placed great emphasis on education and on creating a business friendly environment. Wales too, I know, is making considerable progress now in making the difficult transition from the declining heavy industries of your initial industrialisation - a stage that passed us by - to a modern knowledge based economy such as has taken shape in Ireland. Like everyone else, of course, the world economic downturn has meant belt tightening and a sharp fall in growth for us, but we are confident that our economy has made a permanent step change to a higher level.
The final recontextualising factor is our shared membership of the European Union. Joining the then EEC in 1973 was an important factor in Ireland’s economic development, but also a crucial psychological watershed for us as a people. We stopped the wasteful introspection that had kept us from realizing our full potential and instead embarked on the greatest ever benign adventure in Western Europe with a great surge of enthusiasm. We have been rewarded with a stunning growth in self-confidence as we proved ourselves able networkers, fluent and formidable contributors to every type of debate on the European stage and as we blossomed into the economic success story of Europe. Today we are one of the world’s most open and most successful export economies. The country which missed the first industrial revolution by a mile is a leader of the second. But we know the future will belong to those with imagination, the creative genius to think laterally, and the courage to look for like-minded partners. We are already actively promoting a new level of partnership with Northern Ireland, “building” as the poet John Hewitt says , “ to fill the centuries arrears” and just a short water crossing away lies a people we know well and with whom we share much in common, a fascinating and friendly people.
I believe that with our old friends in Wales, we are at the start of the most exciting and mutually beneficial phase in our long kinship. We want what you want - a world where the gifts and talents of every man woman and child are revealed to them, where they blossom in peace and bring prosperity and contentment, a world of full social inclusion, a world with no margins where no one stands on sidelines watching life in all its fullness, passing them by. Too many of our people’s lives have been wasted through the centuries by lack of opportunity. We are a blessed and privileged generation to whom has been given a remarkable set of opportunities. Like all opportunities of a lifetime we have to be sure to use them in the lifetime of the opportunity. I believe we can. I believe we will.
Go raibh maith agaibh. Thank you.