Remarks by President mcaleese at the Civic Dinner hosted by the Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Beach Ball
Remarks by President mcaleese at the Civic Dinner hosted by the Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen
Lord Provost, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen
Tá lúcháir mhór orm bheith anseo libh anocht ag an ócáid speisialta seo. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croiúil.
Thank you for your kind words of welcome. I first came to this city over twenty-five years ago to spend Hogmanay with friends. It was the first of several visits to the famous Granite City but this is not only my first as President of Ireland but probably the first time I have seen so much of the city in daylight! We students were in those days nocturnal animals and of course this city is as famous for its hospitality as it is for its beautiful architecture. It is a special joy to return here to a place which holds many happy memories for me as it does for every visitor. We come as strangers but leave as friends.
My warm thanks to the Lord Provost and the City Council for the honour of this civic dinner and for allowing me this opportunity to meet so many Aberdonians. I know this venue has played host to many celebrated visitors in the past and I feel very privileged to share the honour with people such as Mikhail Gorbachev but my children - Man U fans to the core - will be even more impressed by the fact Sir Alex Ferguson was lately honoured here.
Earlier today I was the proud and grateful recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the distinguished University of Aberdeen which has seen half a millennium and more of service to teaching and research. Its reputation and its catalogue of distinguished alumni have brought considerable credit and pride to this city.
It has seen many historic episodes, been a witness to the grief and the grandeur of many generations and now it is set to play a major role at this time of great adventure as a fresh new era in Irish-Scottish relationships is about to be crafted.
This morning I had the pleasure of inaugurating the Research Centre for Irish-Scottish Studies at the University. Through its scholarship, its staff, its students, its engagement with the community, its visiting lecturers, its pursuit of intellectual discourse - it will create a crucial link not just between this city and Ireland, but between Scotland and Ireland.
The timing could not be more propitious, for both countries are in the throes of the kinds of dramatic changes which mark out new epochs and watersheds. These are times when we feel liberated enough to ditch the unhappy baggage of the past and confident enough to carefully preserve and even develop the traditions and customs which give us our particularity, the shades of our character, that mark us out as what we are. Out of that new found confidence has come a joyful curiosity about the otherness of the others around us, a profound understanding that we can live with difference and yet work the common ground to make life better for all our people.
The Good Friday Agreement specifically recognises the potential contribution of Scotland in the British-Irish Council, or the Council of the Isles as it is more commonly known in Scotland. Instead of a specifically anglo-centric focus which has characterised much of the past discourse, now Scotland, along with Wales, England, and Ireland, North and South, will bring their individual stories and perspectives to the table. We will create new shared stories and resurrect forgotten shared memories which had grown dim under the shadow of violent conflict. The Institute is ideally placed to generate the ideas and provide the kind of expertise needed to foster this new improved climate of relationships between these two islands.
This City has its own historical links with Ireland. The name of your main street, Union Street, commemorates the 1801 Act of Union between Ireland and Britain. One of your distinguished sons, the 7th Earl and first Marquess of Aberdeen served as Lord Lieutenant and Viceroy of Ireland in the early years of this century. While in Dublin he occupied the house in the Phoenix Park that now serves as my official residence and in that house there hangs a chandelier in which the shamrock the thistle and the rose are intertwined also in commemoration of that same Act of Union.
First Minister Donald Dewar who has his own historic link with Aberdeen South, was a welcome visitor to that house a short few weeks ago. His visit to Dublin, and mine to Aberdeen as the first Head of State to visit a devolved Scotland, says much about how we see our futures evolving.
This lovely city of Aberdeen has acquired a worldwide reputation in recent years as a centre for oil and gas exploration. You have succeeded in placing the city at the cutting edge of modern energy technology and exploration. At the same time you have retained your city’s charm and preserved its historical traditions. Your achievements have many resonances in Ireland today as we seek to manage a booming economy without dispensing with the traditions and values which have sustained us until now. You have a story we need to know well, and we hope we too have stories to tell you. We look forward to ensuring that the historic links that bind us do not set in aspic, that we ransack them for the friendships and common interests which will form part of the warp and weft of a new story which we will craft together. It will be a story of two modern and outward looking peoples with rich cultural treasuries enjoying each other’s company and working together to build a better, safer, more peaceful, more inclusive and humanly decent future for all our people.
I would like to thank you, Lord Provost, for your gracious hospitality. I am leaving here with very happy memories of my time in Aberdeen, and urge you to sustain and develop the close links which bind my country to yours as we approach the third millennium.
Go gcúití Dia bhur saothar daoibh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.