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Speeches

Address by President Mary McAleese, at the launch of the Book of Kells Exhibition

Address by President Mary McAleese, at the launch of the Book of Kells Exhibition “Turning Darkness into Light”

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be with you here today at the opening of this beautiful and colourful exhibition on the Book of Kells entitled “Turning Darkness into Light”.

As many of you will know, the title of the exhibition, “Turning Darkness into Light”, is taken from the famous medieval Irish poem Pangur Bán which, appropriately, was written by an Irish monk at St. Gallen in the 9th century and is roughly contemporary with the Book of Kells.

I was deeply fortunate, in my recent trip to Italy, to witness at first hand the extraordinary and enduring contribution made by Irish monks such as St. Donatus, to the life and culture of mainland Europe all those centuries ago. It is a legacy which is still revered and honoured in those countries, so it is appropriate that we in Ireland, should equally value and pay tribute to that wonderful and deeply moving contribution to our heritage.

The title of the Exhibition, “Turning Darkness into Light” is appropriate, not only theologically and historically, but in the strikingly visual way in which it treats its subject matter. I am struck in particular by the way it uses large glass panels of major pages from the Book of Kells in a greatly enlarged and eye-catching format, to give us a very new and different perception of material that is so familiar in many ways. As such, it contrasts wonderfully with the previous exhibition, “Picturing the Word” which treated the glories of Kells and other manuscripts in an equally imaginative but very different way.

The exquisite beauty of the Book of Kells sometimes overshadows the other rich treasures we possess. So I am delighted to see that other important and beautiful early medieval Irish manuscripts such as the Book of Armagh, the Book of Durrow and the Book of Mulling are being given more emphasis than they have had in the past.

The Exhibition not only highlights the work itself, but, most importantly, it sets the historical context in which it was produced. It shows what life in Ireland was like for the people of Ireland and their clergy around the year 800, as well as providing a chronology of what was happening in the rest of the world at around the same time.

The then trading links between Ireland and sometimes surprisingly remote areas of the world, such as the Middle East and what is now Afghanistan, make today’s grandiose claim to be the era of global communication seem just a little exaggerated.

The display of other medieval Christian manuscripts from as far afield as Armenia helps to place Kells and the other Irish manuscripts in the broader international context of textual and devotional art. It speaks of an era when this island was the centre and the world its circumference. When people ask, as they frequently do – how come the Irish have had such a stunning impact on 20th century literature? - I answer that we draw from a deep well of literacy and love of words and books. This exhibition peels back the curtain – gives us a window on that world from which we come and from which we have drawn inspiration for over a millennium. Now facing the 3rd millennium, it is even more important that we root ourselves in that world where respect for art, for serenity, for beauty, for the soul, culminated in these our great national treasures - a gift with a timeline as far as the eye can see.

It is obvious that an enormous amount of work has gone into the putting together of such a beautiful exhibition and I congratulate all the staff and especially Bill Simpson, Librarian at Trinity College, for their hard work and dedication to producing such a fine piece of work. I am sure the exhibition will be thronged with visitors and I wish everyone involved with it wonderful and richly deserved success.

Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.