REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE THE UNVEILING OF THE BRONZE SCULPTURE OF DR DOUGLAS HYDE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE THE UNVEILING OF THE BRONZE SCULPTURE OF DR DOUGLAS HYDE AT THE INTERPRETIVE CENTRE
Is mór on onóir agus an t-aoibhneas dom bheith anseo chun an dealbh chuimhneacháin bhreá seo ar Dúbhghlas de hÍde, leis an ealaíontóir Barry Linnane, a nochtadh don phobal.
Ba chóir Chomhairle Chontae Ros Comáin agus Bainisteoir an Chontae, John Tiernan, a mholadh go hárd ar son na hoibre atá déanta acu an séipéal anseo a athnuachan agus ról breise a thabhairt dó mar Ionad Mínithe, tiomanta ar shaol agus shaothar Dúbhghlas de hÍde.
Cuirtear gné breise leis an obair sin le críochnú an tionscadail chun an dealbh chuimhneacháin seo a chruthú inniu.
When we think of Douglas Hyde today we often think of him as just the first President of Ireland, but that is surely to put the cart before the horse. He was chosen as President because of his giant contribution to our cultural history.
Hyde, primarily a linguist, became the most popular man in Ireland at a time when most people in Ireland were not especially interested in linguistics. His passion for Irish was part of the reason but it was more than that. Despite centuries of being cowed, he showed us that our cultural identity still lived. The revival of Irish also meant the revival of Irish history and culture, pride and hope. This was no small achievement, as Hyde said in 1905: "We have worked a tremendous revolution in Ireland. It has no political significance yet. It is simply an intellectual fight at this stage. What it may lead to can be conjectured . . .”
And so, in a very concrete way, Hyde was one of the makers of the modern Ireland we know and live in today. He was our ‘reult-eólais’ our star of knowledge going before us. His contemporary, W.B. Yeats, acknowledged Hyde’s great work and saw in him a man whose name would mark the epoch of Irish history in which they lived.
We honour An Craobhín Aobhinn, not only for rescuing our heritage, but for doing so without demeaning the heritage of others. He was no blinkered parochial. Not only did he have a command of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, there is a marvellous account of the young Hyde keeping his diary in three languages: English for the Anglo-Irish world of his parents and their friends; Irish for his secret life with Seamus Hart and and his fellow countrymen; and French for his moments of detachment. Later his love letters to his fiancé were in German. For Hyde, Irish added to the enriching diversity of our lives.
Hyde the story-teller, Hyde the poet, Hyde the playwright, Hyde the academic, Hyde the language activist, Hyde the public figure, Hyde the human being. Among all the facets of this “renaissance man” was another, which this magnificent sculpture now highlights for all of us to enjoy – Hyde the countryman.
The artist, Barry Linnane, has chosen not to represent Douglas Hyde in an academic lecture hall, a fashionable drawing room or an apartment of State. Instead he places him in this countryside which he loved and from which he drew so much of his inspiration for his art and for the Ireland he was bringing into being. Hyde was honoured by many universities and academies of learning, but what could compare with hearing the people of the country sing what he recognised as his own words: mowers and reapers singing his songs in the countryside from Donegal to Kerry.
The Interpretative Centre here is a fine resource for those who are drawn to acquaint themselves with the delights of Douglas Hyde’s long and fruitful labours. To me, the really key event of that work was his address “On the Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland”, which he delivered before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin, on 25 November 1892. This was his call to action, an appeal which soon led to the founding of the Gaelic League and began the movement to revive the Irish language.
In that address, Hyde said
“When we speak of ‘The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation’, we mean it, not as a protest against imitating what is best in the English people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and indiscriminately, everything that is English, simply because it is English.”
That was the trend that upset him, and which he set out to stop – and which he did stop. He was appalled by the sight of an Ireland that was, in a nutshell, throwing away all the elements of its national identity – its language, its stories, its traditional lore.
Had Douglas Hyde not shouted stop on that November evening in 1892, the Ireland of today would be a very different and a poorer place. He rightly felt that political independence would be meaningless if it was not accompanied by cultural independence.
I often ask myself “what would our first President think of the Ireland of today”? My answer, for what it is worth, is that I think he would be very pleased by what he saw.
The reasons for this go far beyond the question of the Irish language, though he would undoubtedly be delighted to know that today more people speak Irish now than did when the Gaelic League was founded in the 1890s, as he would be thrilled with the way the Gaelscoileanna movement has mushroomed in recent years.
But in a wider sense, I think that Douglas Hyde would be happy to see the way modern Ireland has embraced and built on its traditional identity, in reaching out to the global community in which it now has a confident place. He died almost a quarter of a century before Ireland joined the European Union, but I think he would also be pleased at the part we play in a community that builds on what we have in common without attempting to submerge or extinguish what makes us unique.
In Europe and across a wider world, we Irish of today have learned that the more we are true to ourselves and our past, the more people are drawn to what we have to offer. In today’s world, we are secure in our national identity, and for that fact we owe much to the vision and the legacy of Dr Douglas Hyde. Today another Ireland reaps what Hyde sowed, a self-confident Ireland, a successful Ireland. No more “ceann-faoi”- today it is “can do” and the roots of that astounding psychological change go much deeper than many might think. Douglas Hyde nurtured those fragile, overlooked and almost obliterated roots. He looked to the people, to their stories, their language, their essence. He gave them respect and his life’s service. He gave a new generation the key to their own genius. It is entirely fitting that this most blessed of generations should remember and remember well a man to whom it owes its debt of gratitude.
I congratulate Barry on his splendid work and all those who were inspired to remind us in this special way of the great gift Douglas Hyde.