REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE FAMILY LIFE CENTRE, ENNISCORTHY, CO WEXFORD
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE FAMILY LIFE CENTRE, ENNISCORTHY, CO WEXFORD SATURDAY, 26 JUNE 1999
Is mór an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo i bhur measc inniu. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you today in Enniscorthy. I would like to thank the Management Committee for the kind invitation.
Ireland has traditionally been renowned for the strength and the stability of its family unit. Many of you here have come from large families, as I do myself, and can testify to the trials and tribulations of family life, but also the support and comfort, the belonging it brings. Our homes were far from Little Houses on the Prairie but we grew to know intuitively what acres of social research now screams at us that a decent home life is the best start for any human being and as we all know a good start is half the work.
Family life shapes our experiences, personalities and ways of responding to the world far beyond those early years. Where our experience of family life is positive, it launches us into life with the skills and confidence to respond well to the challenges and problems life will throw at us. Where our experience of family life is negative the consequences can damage our life’s chances, cruelly scarring us. It is said that what is engraved in childhood is engraved on stone. If we engrave carefully and skilfully like the diamond cutter cutting a diamond to bring out the strengths and beauty only he or she can see, we will draw out the hidden talents, develop and strengthen the character of the growing child. Make a mistake and like the diamond cutter who makes a wrong mark we damage the child, perhaps irreversibly. On my grandfather’s granite headstone there is a small mistake in the date of his death. Yet the eye seems always drawn to that flaw. When I asked the engraver if it could be fixed he told me the only way to do it was to put up a new headstone because the mistake is etched too deeply into the stone. You cannot take down a child which is damaged and erect another. We get one go around and we have to use that time well. Just as the womb is a perfect nurturing and caring environment for the growing baby, family life should be the perfect nurturing and caring environment for the growing child, for the young adult, for mothers and fathers.
It is therefore important that families have the support and assistance to ensure that that early engraving process is done well and that they are prepared as well as they can be to handle the complex web of relationships within the family.
Every generation has fretted over the impact of social change on family life – not least in this century when the lives and lifestyles of men and women have changed so fundamentally. It is hardly surprising that the litany of pressures on people should impact on institutions such as the family which are relationship driven and always potentially vulnerable.
Those pressures are real – stress, drug addiction, domestic violence, alcoholism, unemployment, peer pressure on children and teenagers, gender inequality so often leading to disrespect, – but we should recognise that for all the joy and security that family life has provided over the generations, there was no golden era when such problems were absent. Such difficulties and more were ever present. Many were never brought into the public domain but festered beneath the surface. People are now more open about such problems and, crucially, more willing to seek help.
Initiatives like this Family Life Centre are invaluable supports in providing that help. The holistic approach taken by this Centre in catering for the whole person – their practical, spiritual and personal needs – deserves particular praise. I understand that over 8,000 people availed of your services in one way or the other last year, a remarkable number by any standards. The range of courses and support that you provide is extremely impressive – from parent and toddler groups to marriage support, bereavement counselling to suicide support and domestic violence counselling.
In all these facilities, you have taken a professional and caring approach to the needs of families and family members in all their diversity. One of the keys to your success has been the way you have combined professional services, through two full time and three trainee counsellors - with the voluntary effort of so many in the community. You have recognised the value of training individuals who have themselves experienced difficulties, to help others in the same position. Participants therefore have the comfort of knowing that the support and advice they receive comes not from any textbook, but from painful personal experience. They also learn that their personal nightmare need not be a permanent prison. There are ways out and there is a loving God who loves each of us for absolutely nothing and through everything. This centre shows the hands of God’s work – at work. Bringing this care, love and hope into lives which need to know and be reassured that they are not alone.
One of the hallmarks of Irish life of which we can be most proud is the extraordinary level of voluntary activity within communities. I would like to pay a warm tribute to the many people in this centre who have generously given of their time and energy to help those in need. That work is all the more important in these changing times. It does make an enormous difference. From my own heart, and on behalf of the people of Ireland, I would like to say thank you.
I know that no one initiative aimed at supporting the family can solve all the problems which exist within and outside the family context. But projects such as this Centre are an invaluable part of ensuring that our children grow up in caring and supportive family environments and in their turn, become happy and rounded individuals, good to their families, spouses, colleagues, communities and country.
I would like to thank you all again for inviting me here today and I wish you well in your future work.
Mo mhíle buíochas libh arís as ucht an chuireadh a thabhairt dom teacht anseo inniu agus guím Rath Dé oraibh go léir sna blianta atá romhaibh.