REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE IRISH FESTIVAL MANCHESTER TOWN HALL
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE IRISH FESTIVAL MANCHESTER TOWN HALL THURSDAY, 22ND FEBRUARY 2001
Is cúis mhór áthais dom bheith anseo libh agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorGhaelach a chur sibh romham.
It is marvellous to be with you this evening to return to the city I last visited shortly before becoming President of Ireland. My warm thanks to Mayor, Councillor Hugh Barrett, for his kind words of welcome and for this lovely opportunity to launch this year’s Manchester Irish Festival.
This Festival celebrates and showcases the talents and the unique contribution of the Irish community to this great city. It is a very special opportunity to open the embrace of all that is good in Irish culture and to share it as a gift with the other communities who share this city’s life and times. We are less than a month away from St. Patrick’s Day 2001 and through this Festival you are building up to an event to exceed last year’s phenomenal Millennium success. Thanks to your efforts, Manchester is now one of the most significant and prestigious Irish festivals in the world. You are entitled to take great pride in that and I know that Ireland shares Manchester’s pride in its Irish community and the richness of its cultural life.
Like Ireland, Manchester has experienced quite a renaissance in recent years. Today’s impressive image is of an outward looking cosmopolitan centre at the cutting edge of youth culture and music. A complex web of endeavour and vision have changed Manchester’s fortunes. High among the factors driving that success is the influence of three thriving universities in Manchester which have made a huge contribution to making this a city of fresh ideas and a vibrant centre of energy and enthusiasm. The presence of an ambitious, dedicated and successful Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also played a key role, as has a strong infrastructure with enviable state-of-the-art transport links. Manchester’s own recognition and celebration of itself as a community of communities has also been crucial in catapulting a confident and expressive Manchester onto the world stage, a place now renowned for innovation in many fields, from industry to music and architecture.
Another innovation many of us are looking forward to is the building and completion of the new Irish World Heritage Centre here in Manchester. I saw plans for the Centre today and was struck by its bold design and ambitious scope mirroring the dynamism of both Manchester and Ireland, today.
As many of you will know, the pace of change in Ireland over the past decade has been truly remarkable. Identified by commentators generally as the success story of the European Union, Ireland is enjoying a period of unrivalled growth which offers huge opportunities to our population and in particular to our young people. We too can offer our communities more hope than ever before and we take pride in what has been achieved in such a short space of time. As a people we have absorbed and adapted to an extraordinary level of change, demonstrating a high level of flexibility and a powerful can-do philosophy.
Manchester knows more than most about embracing change. Here is where industrialisation first took root and flourished, irreversibly changing the course of history. Here the women’s suffrage movement found its clearest voice in the Pankhurst family. Hard as it may be for young men and women to imagine a world where women were thought so little of that their right to vote was denied by the highest authorities in the land, it is worth reminding ourselves that these too were world-changing events that shaped not just the last century but opened many doors into this century and beyond. In Ireland we have been major beneficiaries of the revolution which unlocked the genius of women, allowing their talents to begin to flourish in much wider and more influential spheres than ever before. Their freshness and vitality are transforming the landscape of the future.
That landscape offers things which were unthinkable even a short time ago. Among them is a much happier, peaceful and respectful relationship between these two neighbouring islands. The past holds tragedy and heartache. Before the emphatic demand of the people developed into the peace process in Northern Ireland, too many people in Britain and Ireland had suffered deeply - needless victims of a needless, man-made conflict. Manchester was among those victims.
However what happened in the aftermath of the bomb that devastated an area only a short distance from here, tells me more about this city than almost anything else. I have been told on many occasions how after the bombing, a number of the city councillors paid a visit of solidarity to the Irish Centre. It was a brave and a decent act that was deeply appreciated by the Irish community at that time and since. It affirmed the role of the Irish community as contributors to this city, as serious and significant stakeholders in its present and future, people proud of being Irish, proud of being Mancunians. And the Irish community has played its part in the regeneration project that followed. All of us wish the bombing had not occurred but the past is not ours to undo -regrettably. It is however ours to redeem and we do that by establishing and sustaining the peace which the Good Friday Agreement has made possible.
There have, of course, been many problems along the way. These were not unexpected, and all the parties are continuing to work to resolve them for resolution is the only option the people will tolerate. And we have so much to look forward to when all the energies which were once wasted on hatred and conflict are harnessed in partnership and mutual respect. There is much to learn from this city.
Manchester has, from its earliest days, been a cosmopolitan city, a mix of backgrounds and identities with the Irish but one element of many in that mix. You know only too well the energy and creativity that comes when the giftedness of each diverse part is given its space, its due respect and encouragement. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet representatives from some of the other major communities today and to see the deep wells which feed the mind, heart and soul of your city and your civic life. With as many as one in five Mancunians having Irish connections there is tremendous scope for a flow of inspiration both ways and indeed on the music scene there is undoubtedly a distinctly Irish-Manchester sound. Irish culture is being constantly stretched, enriched and refreshed by the actions and interactions of our global Irish family, among them the Irish family in Manchester. Here you showcase Ireland, her heritage, her music, dance, poetry, vitality. Here you absorb the influences of the cultures all around you and in turn you showcase to Ireland what it is to be Irish in Manchester, and we take huge pride and reassurance from all you do.
It is with great pleasure that I hereby announce the Manchester Irish Festival open.
Go n-éirí go hiontach léi. May it be a great success.