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REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT Reception for Irish Community

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT Reception for Irish Community, Irish Institute for European Affairs, Louvain

Ambassador and Mrs. Ryan, Mr. Vallely and Members of the Irish Institute for European Affairs, Ladies and Gentlemen.I am delighted to meet so many members of the Irish community of Belgium here this evening in a place once renowned as a heartland of Irish education, and today enjoying an impressive renaissance as the Irish Institute for European Affairs.

Earlier this afternoon in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, King Albert and Queen Paola, I was privileged to inaugurate the island of Ireland Peace Park at Mesen (Messines) in Flanders. The Park commemorates the memory of the many thousands from the island of Ireland who fought and died in the First World War. It is located close to the spot where the men of the 36th Ulster Division and the 16th Irish Division fought and fell, side by side, their historic enmities transcended by a common cause.

The historic ceremony at the Peace Park today provides an opportunity to reflect on the past which has shaped us and the future we hope to shape afresh. While Nationalist and Unionist fought the Great War as British soldiers on Belgian soil, at home in Ireland another war against the British broke out. Each war created its own heroes and in the ensuing years it seemed as if the memory of one set could only be honoured by obliteration of the other. The late Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, himself a protagonist in Ireland’s centuries’ old fight for independence spoke for many when he said in 1966:

“In later years it was common – and I also was guilty in this respect – to question the motives of those who joined the new British armies at the outbreak of war, but it must, in their honour and in fairness to their memory, be said that they were motivated by the highest purpose”

The suppression of memory, the withholding of respect has hurt all sides, twisting our perspectives and skewing relationships from generation to generation.

The sons of Ireland who died at Messines and elsewhere during that terrible conflict were no mere statistics. They were real people, made of flesh and blood. They had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, wives and children. They had plans for what they wanted to do with their lives. As they huddled in those terrible mud-soaked trenches, they had hopes and aspirations. One of them, Professor Thomas Kettle, was an ardent Irish nationalist who believed passionately also in the need to defend Belgium from oppression. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme. Stung by criticism he wrote these poignant lines in a poem to his young daughter:

“So here, while the mad guns curse overhead

And tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor

Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead

Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,

But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed

And for the secret Scripture of the poor”

 

The pride I felt in Messines today was therefore tinged with deep-felt humility in the presence of such commitment and sacrifice. But, as we look to the future, to the years ahead, there must, in the name of our common humanity, be a better way of settling our differences than miles of young men’s graves and memorials to lives cut short by cruel warfare. There is nothing romantic about war - it defines our failure in its ugliness and its wastefulness. Yet the spectre of war still threatens and haunts much of our planet. As we look forward to a new millennium, the dead victims of war cry out to us to forsake the tools and emblems of war and place our trust in solidarity and reconciliation.

The message of reconciliation espoused by Paddy Harte, Glen Barr and A Journey of Reconciliation Trust shows that there are always green shoots of optimism and hope. It is important that we nurture and sustain them. Among the most hopeful signs is of course the European Union itself. Now a bulwark against hatred, it was built by once bitter enemies. Out of the ruins of this century’s bloodlust, the winners and losers together crafted a new vision based on partnership, respect and consensus. Eighty years ago Tom Kettle predicted with incredible foresight that Ireland would find her deep identity only when she embraced Europe. How right he was. Never more confident, prosperous and culturally self assured, Ireland has found her stride in and through Europe. To those of you who worked to make it happen and who work to sustain it we owe a debt of gratitude.

Another significant ground for hope lies in the determination of the overwhelming majority of the people in both parts of the island of Ireland to pursue the path of peace, to dismantle the culture of conflict and build a culture of consensus with space and respect for all.

People of goodwill all over the world rejoiced when the Good Friday Agreement came into being and was endorsed so emphatically in the referenda. Their prayers, interest and commitment manifested in so many ways, are an important part of the new energy which is helping us to build the peace. Please be assured that your support for the peace process has been vital and much appreciated. I thank you on behalf of the people of Ireland.

There is a saying in Irish that a good start is half the work- tús maith is leath na hoibre. We have made a good start but it is indeed only half the work. Building a new partnership between North and South, between the two traditions in Northern Ireland and between the two neighbouring islands is now the task entrusted to this generation. The old complacencies, the taunts and the tantrums, the blind eyes and the contempt’s must now give way to justice, equity and respect for all who share the island of Ireland. The old familiar well-travelled roads brought us back in circles and so today we are building a fresh new causeway to the 21st century. There are no signposts on this journey save maybe one - the star which shone over the herdsman’s shed and which invites us to enter a new millennium with peace on earth and goodwill to all.