REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE AISLING AWARDS 2000 EUROPA HOTEL, BELFAST
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE AISLING AWARDS 2000 EUROPA HOTEL, BELFAST THURSDAY, 2 NOVEMBER, 2000
Cuireann sé áthas ar mo chroí bheith anseo libh anocht ag an ócáid speisialta seo. Go raibh maith agaibh as fáilte fíorchaoin a chur romham.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for your warm welcome. I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to attend the Aisling Awards and through them to celebrate the crucial life-changing work of the peacemakers and the prosperity builders. As it happens, on Sunday last I became godmother to a new niece named Aisling so I have had particular cause to reflect lately on that beautiful Gaelic name and all it signifies.
The awards themselves are not new-born but they are of reasonably recent origin and were instituted at a time of rebirth here in Northern Ireland, when the groundswell of support for peace broke through all the old inhibitions and fears and set out on this new journey of peace and reconciliation. No-one who has lived here can have any illusions about the bumps and difficulties that were likely to be encountered on that journey but it is of course an Aisling, a vision, that has sustained and keeps sustaining, those who have embarked on it.
An Aisling, in the sense of a vision poem, conjures up the traditional image of a poet falling into a sleep of weakness and despair. The poet is visited by a mysterious woman who laments the passing of old glory, and foretells a new age of renewal and restoration. The image of a messenger offering hope for a brighter future is particularly apt for these times and for this place. Peace, prosperity, a vibrant civic life, a community focussed on the future - these are things which do not happen by accident. Good people, hard-working people make them happen; people with an aisling, a vision for the future and more than that a determination to make that future real. Northern Ireland has many, many quiet champions. Their work makes a huge difference but mostly it goes unsung, unrewarded. It is not done, of course, for personal reward or recognition but done because of faith in this place, its people and its future; done because the past is a grim place they have been and do not want to revisit.
The role of these awards is to celebrate and encourage those who day in and day out commit themselves to the work of building a future to look forward to and to be proud of. These people are not ones to give in to the counsel of despair or cynicism. They are doers not spectators. They are the essential building blocks of a healthy society and their work is needed in every aspect of life, the family, the street, the workplace, the sportsfield, the political arena, in education, the arts, the media, all those places where the warp and weft of life is woven together.
To understand the giftedness and courage of those who are weaving a strong, enduring and robust peace, it is necessary to remember the appalling pain and suffering endured by thousands of people for so many years. Their very pain is itself the impulse to move on, to stop repeating the bitter legacy of history, to move from the darkness of that past to the light of a new vision.
Allowing that for some it is still very difficult to move on, and that for some the pain of loss will blight their day on earth, nonetheless much has changed to make our present a more reassuring and hope-filled place.
The thousands of Catholics and Protestants, Unionists and Nationalists who said “yes” to the Good Friday Agreement signed up to both a personal and community commitment to promote a culture based on equality, justice, reconciliation and mutual respect. There was a considerable trust deficit on both sides, a deficit only time and effort and fidelity to that common vision, that shared vision, will rectify.
Now, however, besides talking of two communities, two traditions, the “yes” people, those who share the Good Friday vision, can rightfully claim to be an achieving community. Out of the ashes of failure the people of Northern Ireland have done what many thought impossible - they have made the radical shift from a culture of endemic conflict to a culture of consensus. Anyone who thinks that a mean or easy achievement need look no further than Kosovo or the Middle East. Yet here in Northern Ireland men and women of good hearts and good will, despite their differences, despite their heartaches, despite their doubts, are shifting the stuck kilter of history, writing a new script.
The work is painstaking - that is undeniable; and fraught with disappointments and problems - that too is undeniable. But the prize of peace and a society to be proud of, these are prizes worth the struggle, these are the real prizes that people of vision, the Aisling people commit their energies and their hearts to. Northern Ireland is fortunate that it has so many champions who have made this struggle for a new future, a shared future, their own. They deserve thanks, encouragement and recognition and tonight is their night.
There are those who cross the community divide to build up precious relationships of trust and mutual respect in place of division and fear. There are businessmen and women whose entrepreneurial zeal has taken many knocks but has kept on working to bring jobs and prosperity. Their pragmatism and understanding of the link between peace, partnership and prosperity has brought a welcome new air of political reality. The spirit of optimism is sustained by enthusiasts from every walk of life, they use a new language, they challenge old biases, they insist on releasing all the potential energies that partnerships can create, knowing how much opportunity has been wasted in the past by the narrow focus on working against rather than with each other. Every one of them fills history’s void. Every one of them puts their foot against the door that the past so often tries to get through.
And so to the future. I believe that a critical mass of the people of Northern Ireland now share a vision of a peaceful, inclusive and prosperous society based on the achievement of reconciliation and the establishment of relationships of trust and mutual respect. They want to be on friendly terms with their neighbours here, they want to be on friendly terms with their neighbours South of the Border, they want relationships between these islands to be collegial and comfortable. They want these things because these are the keys to the future which lies at the heart of the vision. Every one of us is a stakeholder in that future. Every one has a job to do, a role to play in bringing about that future. It is a special privilege to be here tonight to honour those whose example and leadership makes it easier for others to believe that there is a vision for a new future, that it is achievable, that it is worth the effort, that we will live to see a day when our children and grandchildren will say of us that we were the Aisling generation who turned our backs on hate and gave our hearts and hands to hope.