LISTOWEL WRITERS’ WEEK REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING WEDNESDAY, 31ST MAY 200
LISTOWEL WRITERS’ WEEK REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING WEDNESDAY, 31ST MAY 2000
Is mór an onóir agus an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh tráthnóna chun Seachtain na Scríbhneoirí a oscailt go hoifigiúil. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáílte fíorchaoin.
It is a great pleasure to join you here this evening to officially open the Millennium year’s Listowel Writers’ Week. A warm thank you to John B. Keane and Mary Kennelly for inviting me.
Albert Einstein is credited with remarking that imagination is more important than knowledge. Listowel has been privileged to have always known that without being told it, for in this place there is a tradition of literary imagination which has made it a centre of literary gravity.
In a world where knowledge was power and those who held power built barricades restricting access to that knowledge, it was imagination which breached those barricades time and again. For it could not be and would not be constrained. Imagination draws from deep wells, much deeper wells than mere knowledge and we in Ireland are rightly proud of the fact that we have an age-old literary tradition stretching back across centuries. We are also rightly proud that today’s Ireland has produced and continues to produce local writers of global relevance. What reassures us most though is the bridge between past and present. Octavio Paz tells us that when tradition and modernity “are mutually isolated, tradition stagnates and modernity vaporizes”. Join them however and “modernity breathes life into tradition and tradition responds by providing depth and gravity”.
Listowel understands that in a particular way it has been privileged to be the home of great teachers and writers whose respect for the literary heritage of the past did not generate the paralysis of awe, but encouraged a new generation to self-belief and to assert their own literary credentials.
Ireland has a lot of literary laurels it could easily rest on, but that would be to deny a new generation its chance to shine and maybe outshine its predecessors. Literature, like any cultural endeavour, needs to be constantly nourished and refreshed at root level, so that a new crop, a new generation of budding writers is always jostling for position, challenging the old mantras, bringing a new energy and perspective to this rich heritage of ours, consigning that which once was vain enough to think itself modern to post-modern, inventing a new modernity in their turn - making the very thing which time will distil into tradition.
To have inherited such a great literary culture is in some ways a considerable advantage to aspiring young writers. Listowel itself has a litany of great names enough to inspire any aspiring writer, Bryan MacMahon, George Fitzmaurice, John B. Keane, Brendan Kennelly, Maurice Walsh. But those names can also frighten, for it can be daunting to follow in the footsteps of established greatness. Listowel knows the psychology of the writer too. One of the original aims of the late Bryan MacMahon, (God rest him) when he established this Writers’ Week almost three decades ago, was to encourage emerging writers, through workshops, discussions and readings, to find their own distinctive voice. That objective has been fulfilled and indeed surpassed in the intervening years, with many eminent young and not-so-young writers having gained in Listowel the confidence and courage to persist in their writing career.
Writing can be a lonely and difficult profession, demanding a serious level of discipline and self-belief. Máirtín O’Direáin claimed that no-one was as lonely as the poet -“uaigneach an file thar gach duine”. He wasn’t talking about Writer’s Week in Listowel! This is week of celebration, of festivity, of discovery, of sharing, of talk and argument between friends – both old and newly made, a place for the writer to be encouraged, energized and renewed in his or her vocation.
A centre of gravity it may be, but there is no false gravitas, no po-faced pretentiousness. There is nothing of the elitism, impenetrable jargon, or preciousness that can sometimes attach to the arts. Book launches, readings, plays, film shows, workshops, lectures, historical tours, comedy, debates, and a wide range of children’s events, all sit easily side by side, without barrier or exclusion. There is a comfortable meeting and melding of native and visitor, writer and audience, expert and amateur, young and old, the international and the local, the established, the aspirant. And from that comes the very special atmosphere that is the Listowel Writers’ Week. From it too comes a message that each generation needs its writers and its writers need to be encouraged.
I would like to congratulate the Festival President, David Marcus, the Chairperson Mary B. Kennelly and all of the Committee members, for organising such a wonderful week of discussion and entertainment. I wish Listowel well in its plans to make permanent its role as a centre of literary gravity with its planned Literary and Cultural Centre and it is now my great pleasure to declare the Listowel Writers’ Week officially open.
Guím gach rath agus séan oraibh. Go n-éirí go geal libh.