REMARKS AT A SENIOR CITIZENS RECEPTION FRIDAY, 19TH NOVEMBER 2010
REMARKS AT A SENIOR CITIZENS RECEPTION FRIDAY, 19TH NOVEMBER 2010
Dia dhíbh go léir a chairde. Is cúis mhór áthais duinn fáilte a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu. Martin and I are delighted to welcome each and every one of you with the traditional ‘céad mile fáilte’, one hundred thousand welcomes to the Áras today. We have a great representation from all over the island, from those great football rival counties of Antrim, Down, Kerry, Louth, Meath and Dublin, to the great hurling and camogie county of Wexford and on to the home of the legendary Joe Dolan in Westmeath. So if we get tired kicking or pucking a ball around the front lawn today, we can call on our friends from Mullingar to sing us a song!
There are probably a number of grandparents among you who help with the grandchildren or who are called on to demonstrate your DIY skills in your children’s houses or who give a dig out with their finances, or whose advice is sought because if you don’t know the answer – then no one does. Many of you here are members of local associations and are actively involved in your communities or in voluntary organisations and there may even be some who have gone back to education either as a tutor or as a pupil. I’m sure that most of you will know the value of a good neighbour and what its means to look out for one another. So, although you may be senior in years, very many of you continue to make a vital contribution to the life of communities and this country. For age, is not a full stop or a terminus but rather a comma, while we pause for a few seconds, gather our thoughts and move on. In saying that, I am conscious too that for some, ill health in later life limits both its enjoyment and the opportunity to be as active and involved as we might like to be.
It’s a great privilege to open the house to our senior citizens today in thanks for all you do and have done through the years. What you encapsulate is resilience and strength, for in living your life and surviving through tough times and mass emigration, you reared families, worked hard, educated your children, fought for fairness and paved the way for my generation’s access to equality, education and most importantly the opportunities that they opened to us. Yours was the backbone on which this Ireland of today was built and although it’s not in its very best shape at the moment, it is a better place than it was because we have a young, confident, educated population who will step up to the mark and demonstrate the resilience, commitment and determination of their grandparents to work through these challenging times we are living through right now.
Your gift to the youth of this country is your wisdom, for there is an old Irish saying “Bua na gaoise toradh na haoise” - “the gift of wisdom is the fruit of age”. Our young people learn from previous generations and you, the grandparents, the aunts, uncles, neighbours, can be described as the orchards of knowledge, experience and the wisdom that comes from lives lived in good times and bad, mistakes made, lessons learnt and stored away to be revisited when required. In these challenging times, we need to harvest your store of wisdom and determination in a meitheal of focussed effort to help turn the tide we face and to get our country really going again.
But not today, because today is about fun and enjoying each other’s company and maybe making a new friend or two or more. Enjoy the house, the hospitality but most of all bring home happy memories. I would like to extend a special word of thanks to our soprana Rebecca Rodgers who will delight us with her wonderful voice and who is accompanied today by Fiachra Garvey on piano. I’d also like to thank the Civil Defence for looking out for us and the Áras team who are working so hard to make this day enjoyable and memorable for you. Thank you all for being here and for all you do to keep the spirit of resilience alive. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.