REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE PRESIDENT’S AWARDS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE PRESIDENT’S AWARDS ST LOUISE’S COMPREHENSIVE COLLEGE
Tá lúcháir orm bheith anseo libh ag an ócáid speilialta seo. Míle bhuíochas libh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin a chur romham.
It gives me great pleasure and great pride to be here on this very special occasion – the first presentation of the President’s Award in Northern Ireland. It is also a singular privilege to have been asked to present the Duke of Edinburgh awards today, a gesture which underlines the remarkable level of co-operation and partnership between the two awards and expresses in the best way possible the collegial and trusting relationship enjoyed between the two awards, both of which are of course members of the same international award organization. I would like to thank Sr. Rosaleen and the Board of Governors for the kind invitation to make the presentations here in St. Louise’s and of course in my home city.
As President I am invited to a lot of things; some are very formal and ceremonial, some are very simple but there is something very special about those events where we gather to celebrate the achievements of the young men and women who will be the citizens of tomorrow. Those who created these awards, both the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the President’s Award, have always had the deepest faith in our young people, in their courage, their goodness, their talents, their curiosity, their self-discipline, their resilience. These awards promote, develop and test all those things. It is a test of the self, against challenges that stretch and make demands of you. They take you a journey into yourselves, and the strange thing is, that this is a journey for which you volunteer. You did not have to enter for the awards. There is no law that compelled you to participate. And yet you did. You committed to the dictates of the award, you stuck with it when there were plenty of other things to distract and tempt you away and today we take the warmest pride in telling you that you have been tested and you have triumphed.
The award you receive today tells you emphatically that you are not the same person you were when you started the award. You are entitled to look at yourself differently because others will do exactly that. We need a strong civic society. We need strong individuals who make good colleagues, trusted and caring neighbours, reliable friends, faithful partners, committed community builders. We need those people and we don’t have enough of them, and sometimes we wonder where they are to come from and then we meet on a day like this and here you are, layering up the skills, the insight, the experience to be those strong citizens. And that is why we look at you differently on a day like this because we no longer simply hope in you, today we know your worth, we respect it and we are so grateful for it.
So be proud of what you have done because we are surely proud of each and every one of you. I hope your record of achievement will now give you the confidence and the enthusiasm to go on to further develop your leadership skills, to take on new challenges and to be unafraid to become the next generation of leaders.
Those of us who share this island home are faced with choices and opportunities which were carved out of too much conflict, too much hatred. We have seen what happens when people take their talents and put them at the service of hurting others. We have seen the awesome power of bitterness and we know that it is toxic - it only destroys, it builds nothing up. Now we have a chance to use our talents, to make good things happen, to work in respectful partnership with each other and for each other, to make a future to be truly proud of.
Your generation has before it many yet unlived days. Every single one of those days is a chance to build up what is humanly decent and honourable or not. My generation among others, managed to waste a lot of our days. I trust you to use your days well and I trust you in particular, because you are already people who have used your days well. I know you would be the first to acknowledge that you had help along the way, from parents, teachers, programme leaders, from the staff of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the President’s Award and from those, whose voluntary labour and sponsorship, keeps both schemes at the service of the young.
I want to thank all those people in a very special way and in particular to say a thank you and farewell to the dynamic departing Chair of the President’s Award, Mary White whose imagination and drive have been key to this day. This has been an historic day and one which could not have happened without the support and cooperation of the Director of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Mr. Eric Rainey and his dedicated staff, who are responsible for facilitating your choice of Award received. Indeed I am conscious of the debt we owe to the Duke of Edinburgh and HRH Prince Edward for their vision which helped us to launch a series of joint initatives between the two awards and to offer the President’s Award in Northern Ireland. I would like to thank them for I do believe that we have set an example of cooperation and mutual respect which captures the ambition we all have for a peaceful, harmonious future on this island.
Where better to begin than here in this legendary school where so many moulds have been broken over the years. St. Louise’s has always stood for the uniqueness of each human person. It has believed in its pupils even when they doubted themselves and to each it has given that precious, elusive gift of self-belief. More than that, through the work of this school, we have all been educated in the triumph of faith in the giftedness of the individual, particularly when that person grows in a supportive and affirming environment and has the great gift of inspiring teachers. To Sr. Rosaleen, teachers and ancillary staff, the Board of Governors, the community that is St. Louise’s, to the staff and students of Bloomfield Collegiate School, Wellington College, Meánscoil Feirste and my old school St. Dominic’s who have joined us for this ceremony, my thanks for encouraging the Awards and for giving all of us this memorable, this ground breaking day.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.