REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE FULBRIGHT IRELAND DEAFNESS PROGRAMME
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE FULBRIGHT IRELAND DEAFNESS PROGRAMME TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
Tá mé iontach sásta bheith i bhur measc inniu ag an ócáid speisialta seo. Tá mé thar a bheith buíoch díbh go léir as an chuireadh a thug sibh dom teacht anseo agus as fáilte a bhí chaoin, cneasta agus croiúil.
May I first thank Professor Jim Malone for those warm words of welcome. It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation from Professor John Kelly to launch the Fulbright Ireland Deafness Programme here today. I would like to extend a particular ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’ to everyone who has travelled over from Gallaudet University for this launch, especially my good friend Ceil Lucas.
As many of you may know, the education of the deaf is a subject in which I have had a deep interest for many years, not least because my own brother, John, is deaf. It was inevitably a topic that arose when I met Ceil by chance last year in the somewhat unlikely setting of the Donegal Gaeltacht. Then again, perhaps that setting was appropriate, for Irish – like any language – is about more than communication. It is also about cultural expression and access to an aspect of one’s identity. Enabling any minority community – whether it is defined in terms of ethnic origin or disability – to have access to its own language, its own form of communication - is an important human right, a source of pride and celebration. But it is equally important that those channels of communication are permeable – that they do not become barriers which cocoon and isolate the minority community – but rather open up new possibilities for dialogue and understanding with the wider society.
These issues are of particular importance for the deaf community in Ireland – a community whose educational needs have, for so long, been stymied by a sterile debate about teaching methodologies – oralism or sign language – as if they were mutually exclusive concepts. We need to move on from that unnecessary dichotomy, to tackle the real needs of deaf children and young adults, whose experience, at both individual and collective level, has all too often remained one of isolation, unfulfilled dreams and stunted potential.
That isolation has both fed into and been exacerbated by the failure of society as a whole, to understand the needs of the deaf community, and to vindicate their rights to participate as equals within our society. To be deaf in our society, has for so long also meant being invisible – both unheard and unseen. And so, all too often, they have been forgotten when the policies and decisions which determine our lives - and their lives - have been taken.
That applies especially to their educational needs, because for the deaf, like so many people with disabilities, it is the denial of comprehensive, effective and customised educational opportunities that has for generations hindered their capacity to make the most of their talents, further feeding stereotypes of helplessness and dependency. Worse, it has eaten away at their own self-esteem and self-confidence, confining them further to the margins, to the shadows of unfulfilled potential and unrealised dreams.
Education is the key to breaking this vicious cycle. It is the key through which both the talents and confidence of the deaf community can be fostered and it is especially important that this process begins from the earliest years of education. My grandmother had a saying - ‘what is learnt in childhood, is engraved on stone’. If we engrave the hearts or minds of our children badly, the damage we do may never be corrected. If we engrave well, if we teach our children – both deaf and hearing - that each of them is unique and special, if we show by our example that difference is to be appreciated and embraced, not feared or shunned; if we give them the self-confidence and support to develop their gifts to the full – then we will have done all our children – deaf and hearing alike – a great service.
Through education, we can move from the vicious circle of isolation and wasted talent, to the virtuous circle of inclusion and equal participation. If we achieve that, we build a generation which can succeed on any playing pitch –deaf or hearing. And they will be people who will act as role-models for the next generation, who will be living proof that barriers can be surmounted – indeed who will demand of society that such barriers be dismantled.
I recently had the pleasure of visiting New York to accept the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award on behalf of the people of Ireland. That award acknowledges the progress we have made in recent years. But we also recognise that we are still a long way in this country from the superb facilities which colleges like Gallaudet and Rochester Institute of Technology – which I had the pleasure of visiting during that trip - provide for young deaf people in the United States. I believe, however, that we are starting to turn the corner.
The Centre for Language and Communication Studies here at Trinity has played a key role in leading that change and in recent years there have been a number of valuable initiatives in UCD, Maynooth, UCC and Waterford Institute of Technology and indeed in my own alma mater Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster.
We recognise, however, that we have much to learn from the experience of other countries in the education of the deaf. That is why this Fulbright Ireland Deafness Programme is such a timely and important development. Gallaudet is widely acknowledged as having an exceptional range of knowledge and experience in the education of the deaf. Its very name today is synonymous globally with first class education for the deaf. This two-way programme will enable us to tap into that reservoir of knowledge which is Gallaudet’s great gift, and enable Ireland to share its particular store of knowledge with our American colleagues. I have no doubt that the Irish students who complete the programme will become crucial agents of change within the deaf community in Ireland – a new leaven - harbingers of new hope.
I would like to warmly commend Professor John Kelly, Director of the Fulbright Commission, and all of his colleagues for lending their support and expertise to this project. I would also like to pay tribute to all those within the Irish Deaf Society and Trinity College – especially Sarah Burns and Lorraine Leeson – for their outstanding dedication and hard work in helping to get this exchange programme off the ground. But particularly I want to thank Ceil Lucas and the execrable Donegal weather of last summer which drew us all indoors – into each other’s company, into musing about the future and dreaming of making a difference little by little. Ceil is one of life’s doers. We are grateful for them. They bring hope through doing.
I wish all of you every success with the Programme in the years ahead.
Go gcúití Dia bhur saothar daoibh.