REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE NORTHERN IRELAND FARMING COMMUNITY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION FOR THE NORTHERN IRELAND FARMING COMMUNITY AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN
Is cúis mhór áthais dom fáilte a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
Both Martin and I are very happy to have this opportunity to welcome you here today to Áras an Uachtaráin. A very special thank you to those who helped organise this day – especially Minister Joe Walsh, members of Northern Ireland’s farming community, An Bord Bia and officials from the Department of Agriculture and Food.
We are here today to pay tribute to the farming community, to acknowledge the crucial role you play in agriculture and food production, which are so basic and essential to the well-being of our island home. And today is also about acknowledging your central role in preserving the rural fabric of many communities.
Change is a feature of the modern world and farming has certainly been on the front line of change. Today your working environment has grown in complexity affected as never before by technology, bureaucracy, changes in environmental and food sciences, membership of the European Union, the diversification of the farming profession, the creeping urbanisation of rural areas and many more. Many of us in this room remember digging potatoes manually, footing the turf and building the hayricks but those days are now consigned to storytelling. Now your world is full of challenges and sometimes surprises, they tend not to respect boundaries or borders as we found out during the Foot and Mouth crisis last year. We saw then the wonderful solidarity, which all people on this island demonstrated in playing their part to tackle the crisis. The sense of responsibility, generosity and sacrifice shown by all communities, urban and rural, North and South was truly remarkable. It gave us a reassuring insight into how much we have to gain by working together in voluntary partnership to develop shared approaches to common problems and opportunities so that we can all can face the future with confidence, determination and enthusiasm.
Agriculture and food production is of major importance to both our economies on this island. More than that it is part of our shared identity and way of life. Many of us, whatever our religious or political perspective, can trace our roots back to rural communities and farming. Both my mother and father were reared on small farms and I particularly remember the subsistence economy of my paternal grandfather, which was so simple that when rural electrification came he refused to countenance installing it in his cottage because he was fearful, as a subsistence farmer, of coping with the tyranny of regular bills. In the farming community neighbour helps neighbour and doesn’t stop to ask what that neighbour believes in. Few people understand the need for community generosity and kindness as well as the farming community does for it is an essential part of the farming culture. With peace beginning to taking hold in Northern Ireland, difficult though its journey is, we now have an opportunity and an obligation to make sure that we create the respectful friendships on which a better, more secure and less fearful future will rest. We each have something to learn from each other and something to share with each other. I hope that today’s engagements have been useful in terms of sharing experiences and examining possibilities for greater co-operation between us. Your visit will help nurture that spirit of friendly co-operation in which people who look at the world differently in some important respects, whether in terms of history, politics, faith or ambition also share many values, perspectives and problems and importantly solutions in common.
Most of all I hope that you will enjoy yourselves meet an old friend or two and make a new one before the day is out.
I would like to thank our entertainers Mona McMahon, who entertained you so beautifully in the Front Hall and the Kylemore College Quartet who did an equally wonderful job here in this room. I would also like to thank Mary Kennedy, Civil Defence Officer for her expert assistance.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.