ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE IRELAND FUNDS GALA DINNER, ROYAL HOSPITAL, KILMAINHAM
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE IRELAND FUNDS GALA DINNER, ROYAL HOSPITAL, KILMAINHAM, TUESDAY, 25th JUNE, 2002
Dia dhíobh a cháirde.
I dtosach báire ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil anáthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croiúil.
Chairman, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am delighted to be here with you this evening as you mark the end of what I know has been a very useful and successful visit to Ireland. I owe a particular thanks toSenator Maurice Hayes for inviting me to join you and I extend a heartfelt ‘Céad Mile Fáilte’ – a hundred thousand welcomes, to our visitors from all around the world including of course our many friends from the United States. Your interest in Ireland and care for her welfare is a tremendous gift to the Irish people. It is a gift we do not take lightly or for granted, a gift we cherish and from which we have benefited hugely.
I hope that on this trip you have been renewed and re-energised in that special mission of care for Ireland and encouraged by the progress made on the path to peace, partnership and prosperity.
I have had the good fortune to attend Ireland Fund events in many parts of the world and each one is a reminder of the remarkable network of voluntary endeavour, which has successfully grown and developed this organisation.
Ireland is lucky indeed to have such good friends, such fine champions in every corner of the globe and I extend a special warm welcome and a huge thank you to our friends Loretta Brennan Glucksman of the American Ireland Fund, to Charles Curran of the Ireland Fund of Australia, William Neill of the Ireland Fund of Canada, and Pierre Joannon of the Ireland Fund of France. Like so many of those who commit to the work of the Ireland Funds these are eminent, busy men and women with many competing pressures in their lives and indeed with many worthy causes anxious to have them as advocates. Your choice of Ireland, its people, its future has helped change the course of our history. For generations the greatest natural resource this island has in the genius of its people was subverted by the baleful legacy of conflict, the poison of sectarianism, the paralysis of poverty, the absence of a spirit of all island cooperation, the absence of so many of our people through emigration. I grew up in that world but my children are growing up in an Ireland where that grim legacy is dwindling, vanishing before our eyes. There is a new spirit here and it has taken hold of many hearts. It frightens some but it inspires many more and among those who are inspired, who believe in this new dispensation are many men and women who first learnt the power of partnership through the vital work of reconciliation undertaken by the Ireland Funds.
Literally thousands of people who had lived their lives locked inside a “them and us” mentality, learnt, with your help, that division wastes our lives, holds us back, makes us miserable but our truest potential is only revealed when we work together, when we make a shared community of “them and us”.
Through your projects they tested partnership and then tasted success. They also learnt something about the human capacity for generosity because wherever the signs proclaiming another project funded by the Ireland Funds were raised, it was a formidable reminder of the generosity, the kindness and the unwavering friendship of unknown strangers all around the world.
That too challenged us to find in ourselves the goodness, the character, to match that generosity and to vindicate it.
Since you visited us here last summer, our lives have been convulsed by the unconscionable events of September 11th. Ireland responded as if the terror had been unleashed on our own doorstep for in a sense that is just how it felt. Our links to the United States are so deep, complex and real that Ireland stood still in shock and grief. On September 14th, we held a National Day of Mourning to show our solidarity, with our American friends and our extended Irish American family.
I was deeply moved when I visited New York during St. Patrick’s Day this year and saw the raw courage, which is rebuilding hope, shining in the faces of the new recruits to the New York Fire Department as they walked solemnly in the shoes of dead men and women. It was wonderful too, to welcome many of the fire officers and their families when they holidayed here a few months ago as guests of the Irish people. We were glad to be able to show that the care and compassion runs both ways and I am delighted to have an opportunity this evening to congratulate the Ireland Funds on committing US$1 million, over $200,000 of which has been raised here in Ireland, to help those who suffered so terribly on that awful day.
I know that you will join with me this evening in again extending our sympathies and good wishes for the future to the many who continue to suffer in the aftermath of that shameful day when we saw human hatred at its worst and unselfish love at its best.
The message of the Ireland Funds is powerful, emphatic and enduring. It tells us that we can transcend the past. It shows us that we can transform the future. It pledges that, difficult though the job may be, we are not alone. In eleven countries, across five continents there are friends willing us on to be the first generation to reveal the full extent of its power for good.
We are not there yet and that is why we still need the reassurance and encouragement of those friends as we work to build the trust and reconciliation, which will underpin the Good Friday Agreement. We take heart from the warm relationship that now exists between Ireland and Great Britain. We take heart from the way in which the
new Government of Northern Ireland is working. We take heart from the success of the cross border bodies and the interjurisdictional structures, which are seedbedding a new culture of consensus and partnership. Our hearts break when we see the pictures from Holy Cross or East Belfast and when we see naked sectarianism still poisoning life for so many people. But it is practical help and not simply pity that will change that story. Your leadership in the field of cross community efforts which focuses on those who are socially and economically marginalised is already far ahead of the posse in terms of understanding the centrality of that constituency to the stability of the Peace Process.
The peace dividend has to be tangible in their lives. It has to become a lived reality rather than a blather of nice words. The destination is an inclusive society, a society where difference is respected, a society where all are equal, where justice is evenly dispensed, where benefits are equitably distributed, where all are nurtured and none is ignored. We should be in no doubt that there are still powerful forces determined to thwart that goal. They are hoping we will fade away and that our interest will wane. They are just waiting to colonise the space left by neglect or disinterest. They are planning even as we gather here tonight to drag us back to the unhealed and ugly past. But they reckon without the collective wills of the vast majority of people North and South, or the collective wills of the people of Great Britain, or the collective wills of the friends of democracy and decency who have committed with a passion to this new dawn for Ireland.
The Ireland Funds is building up our civic strength, drawing more and more people into building up community whether it is through the arts, education, training –
from Clifden Arts Week to the Shankill Community Festival in Belfast, you are making individuals and communities strong, resilient and motivated. You are connecting people to one another - people who were once profoundly estranged are now friends, and colleagues thanks to you. And next year thanks to your support, Ireland will have the distinction of hosting the Special Olympic World Games - the first country to do so outside the United States. It is of course a mammoth undertaking for the Irish organisers.
But with the help of the Irish Government which has committed funding of over 10 million Euro and the reliable help of our friends we know we can give the world’s special athletes a welcome to remember and they in turn will give us a store of wonderful memories. I hope many of you will join us here at what promises to be a spectacular sporting occasion involving the entire island next year.
It has been an honour to be here with you this evening and to have this chance to tell you how grateful we are for all you have done, for all you are doing and for your continuing love of Ireland. We know that you commit to Ireland not because any law forces you but because you freely choose to. We are blessed by the choices you have made. We do not take them for granted but accept them as the miracles they are and the evidence they are of the spectacular power of human goodness to subjugate and overcome adversity. Tonight as we eat together there are men, women and children whose lives have been made worthwhile because of you. On their behalf I thank you.
I wish you every success with your future work. Enjoy this evening and the rest of your stay with us.
Mar chríoch ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh go léir arís as ucht an chuireadh a thabhairt dom teacht anseo tráthnóna inniu. Guím gach rath agus séan ar bhur gcuid oibre san am atá le teacht.
Go raibh maith agaibh.