REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR PEOPLE FROM OMAGH, BUNCRANA AND BALLYMONEY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR PEOPLE FROM OMAGH, BUNCRANA AND BALLYMONEY WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 1998
Martin and I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you to our house this evening – in particular the injured and bereaved who have come a long way to be with us – from Ballymoney, from Buncrana and from Omagh. I would like to welcome His Excellency, the Ambassador of Spain who is representing families of the Spanish victims of the Omagh bombing - and His Excellency the Ambassador of Austria who is with us also.
I am delighted also to welcome the representative of the Omagh District Council and the emergency services – the police, the fire service, the ambulance service, the hospital medical teams and assistants – indeed the many services and people who had essential roles to play in helping people to cope on the terrible day in Omagh. Our MC this evening is the very accomplished actor, Gerry McSorley, who is himself from Omagh – and I would like to thank him for making this evening such a success. To all of you, let me say how delighted we are that you have accepted our invitation to come to Áras and Uachtaráin.
We are very privileged this evening to have the world-renowned Vienna Boys Choir with us, and I would like to thank them for agreeing to come along to provide a suitable seasonal flavour for the evening. A little later, we expect to welcome Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie. They are on their way as I speak and will arrive closer to six o’ clock.
Our main reason for inviting you to be with us this evening is to have an opportunity to show our solidarity with all of you as this unforgettable year draws to a close. It has been a mixed year – with our optimism and high expectations in the wake of the momentous Good Friday Agreement and the referenda that followed, shattered by the awful happenings at Ballymoney and at Omagh. In that respect it was a painful year for all of us – particularly for you whose lives have been so terribly affected in a year that, with God’s help, will never be repeated in its pain and its suffering.
I know however, that your hurt, your loss, and your suffering will remain with you for your lifetime. You have been through some terribly difficult days and weeks, and you face a daily struggle in the months and years ahead as you try to come to terms with what has happened in your lives. Too much loss, too many hopes obliterated, too many people asked to carry burdens of grief and physical injury. Yet you are not alone. Everywhere I have gone – Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand, Liverpool - complete strangers told me of their prayers for you and for our homeland. By bringing you to our house this evening, it is our way of giving you a hug of love and friendship – and of saying how we want to share your burden with you in whatever way we can – all the while being painfully aware of how inadequate our efforts are to restore what you have lost or even to lighten that burden.
As this fateful year closes, it is perhaps appropriate that we should look ahead – however difficult we may find it at times. While our expectations suffered so terribly during this turbulent summer – our hopes were not destroyed by those who thought the Peace Process so fragile that it could be bombed to extinction. They were so wrong. The spirit of Omagh - of the sacrifices of the little Quinn boys - bolstered and strengthened our resolve and determination to move forward from the chaos and suffering that we have had to endure – to move towards a time and a place that cherishes human life in all its diversity.
We have been given an opportunity to build a new future for ourselves and for the coming generations, so that they will not have to know the kind of suffering and destruction that has brought so much hurt and misery to this small island. We owe it to all those whose lives have been blighted – to those who have experienced pain and loss over the last thirty years in Ireland, to take lessons from the dead, the injured and our grieving - and to prove that we too can transcend our differences, that we can debate and dialogue our way through the issues we disagree on – and we can create space for all based on mutual respect for our traditions, creeds and cultures.
This house was once the home of the British Viceroys in Ireland. For them Dublin was, after London, the second jewel in the Empire’s Crown. History has made it my home and I want to make it a place where we the children of our troubled history can all feel at home. It is a repository of hundreds of years of British history and Irish history – and the intertwined histories of our two islands. All the stories – whether of Viceroys, Governors General and Presidents – all are told here respectfully in our Visitor Centre. No-one who comes here – whether from the Shankill or South Armagh – should feel uncomfortable. This home tells the story of our shared history. It has a store of shared memories. We really look at them differently, care about the differently – but they are now ours to share.
Thank you for taking the time to join us and for giving us this opportunity to offer some hospitality. Martin and I wish you well in the years ahead, and we would like to assure you that you are in our thoughts and prayers - especially at this approaching Christmas time, which we know will not be easy for you. We pray that you will have the strength to continue to recover and overcome the personal difficulties that have been cast in your way. My renewed thanks to you and the Vienna Boys Choir.
May we together create a new and a happy shared memory here in Áras an Uachtaráin. On the day that Martin Luther King was shot, Bobby Kennedy quoted this piece from the poet Aeschylus – “In our deep sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God”.