ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS OF THE MATER
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS OF THE MATER MISERICORDIAE HOSPITAL
Dia dhíbh a chairde, thank you for the welcome and thank you to Brian Conlon for his kind invitation to join you here today to officially launch the 150th Anniversary Celebrations of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital. I would also like to congratulate the members of the Anniversary Organising Committee who have taken on the responsibility for making sure that this sesquicentenary is marked memorably as it is surely entitled to be.
The foundations of the Mater Misercordiae Hospital are not bricks and mortar but
values-enduring, unchanging values summarised in the word love, in particular love of suffering humanity, a love expressed in compassion, concern, selflessness and care. There is an old proverb ‘where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Ireland of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a bleak place of slums, virulent diseases, of low life expectancy, high maternal deaths and all the misery that comes with widespread destitution and poverty. The people were perishing when in 1831 Catherine McCauley founded the Sisters of Mercy and set in train a national and international movement which would set new standards and a new vision for healthcare and education. Catherine McAuley’s vision was informed by her faith in God and by the challenge of the great commandment to love one another. She was dead ten years before the foundation of the Mater Misercordiae Hospital but without her we would not be here today, not would we know the righteous pride we have today in this great Catholic teaching, voluntary hospital, which has served the sick so consummately well in generation after generation.
In their early years The Sisters of Mercy were once known as the “walking nuns” because they were so visible around the streets visiting the sick and engaging in works of mercy. This hospital’s site on Eccles Street has for many decades been a visible outward sign of care for the sick. It has stood mute while history has happened all around and inside it. Here medical history was made over and over again. On the streets outside, empire gave way to an independent republic and poverty gave way to progress. Through it all, there was inevitably sickness and death. Men and women made the work of health care their personal vocation and through their training, treatments and research, the Mater Hospital became a byword for a particular kind of health-care excellence which is underpinned by a clear charism, the charism of Catherine McAuley. No matter how complex or technologically sophisticated this hospital and its services have become, the unifying spirit, the glue that holds it all together is the shared commitment to that charism of care for the unique human person who is the patient.
Hospitals can feel like an alien place for patients and their families. It is a world of tests, treatments, procedures, diagnoses, good news, bad news, pain, cures, stresses, worries and fears. It is a place where people are fed, washed, nourished, nurtured, encouraged, comforted, given information, counselled, advised. The Mater team embraces a huge range of individuals some medical, administrative, catering, cleaning, educational, technical, spiritual and many more. The services offered today would leave the founders dizzy with disbelief but dazzled by the many achievements which have accreted over these one hundred and fifty years and which now form a fascinating and impressive narrative second to none.
I have been a patient here and know how good it is. I have been a patient in the sister
Mater Hospital in Belfast where my aunt and sister trained as nurses. I remember so clearly the day my younger sister commenced her nursing training – there was a ceremony in which the hands of all the new nurses were blessed. In that simple gesture they were reminded that they were carers and healers in a particular and distinctive tradition, set in train the best part of two hundred years ago by one woman with a vision. I thank all who have through the work of their hands blessed this place and the people who have come to it in need of its help. Through the sweep of a century and a half there are a lot of thanks owed – much of it to people who are long gone and may never have heard a word of thanks. So today I offer thanks and encouragement to the 2011 team, including Sr. Margherita and the Sisters of Mercy Community. Thank you for continuing in this generation to make this work of care your personal vocation, your life’s work.
The Mater Hospital’s foundations are the very embodiment of all that is good, selfless, decent and kind about Ireland. This simple site made its own history of care no matter what the times, tides, economic fortunes or misfortunes. It has always kept its focus on the thing that does not change, the need the sick have for help. Here it has been given generously and carefully to levels of excellence that allow us to gather this day in both pride and hope.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.