Remarks at the Presentation of Awards to the Undergraduates of the Year
Dublin Castle, 28th October 2011
Cuireann sé áthas orm bheith anseo libh i gCáisleán Baile Átha Cliath ar maidin agus táim thar a bheith buíoch daoibh as an chuireadh seo a thug sibh dom.
Here we are in Dublin Castle, once so associated with keeping people down, today a place where we gather to celebrate our students who are using their freedom and the educational opportunities our society can provide to achieve outstanding things - things which make us proud of them and very hopeful for our country. Back in 2009 I was at the inaugural award ceremony in the Royal Irish Academy. Today the project has prospered so much that we need this much larger venue and with the introduction of the pilot programme for gifted students from the United States the awards now have an international dimension. To our visitors from the States I wish you the traditional Gaelic welcome ‘céad míle fáilte’ – one hundred thousand welcomes.
Jacob Bronowski has said that students bring ‘a certain barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.’
If we add to that William Butler Yeats’ view that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire” then we can see that what we are celebrating here is a penetrating intellectual curiosity allied to passion for a particular subject. And in our world there are many subjects to be explored, many questions to be asked that need the rigour of scholarship if they are to be answered adequately. Our country needs young scholars to commit to the kind of research that opens up our knowledge, that drives innovation, that solves problems that makes our country a centre of intellectual gravity and leadership, unafraid to compete with the best, unafraid to set out to be the best.
Today we salute the best from among 2,345 entries from 41 third level institutes both North and South of the border and a further 36 from the United States. 88% of them achieved a grading of 1st class honours level. The range of subjects covered is phenomenal from sectarianism to thermodynamics from human rights to bank interest rates and the level of achievement is truly impressive.
The Undergraduates Awards are designed to showcase the best of our undergraduates on a day like this when the awards are handed out, but back down the line when the notices inviting entry to the awards go up on college notice boards they are a challenge to our students to push themselves a bit harder and to make their work amenable to scrutiny by international judges. Undergoing that process and arriving here this day is part of a journey to new levels of self-belief and confidence in your ability.
I hope that process will lead each one of you to good career options and good life’s choices but above all I hope it firmly places you among the ranks of those for whom intellectual curiosity and an active wonder, is a life-long companion. You will never be bored or boring and wherever you makes your lives and however you earn your living, our civic society, our economic narrative as a country will be much the better for you and your contribution.
I commend Oisín Hanrahan and Paddy Cosgrove, who initiated these awards and who nurtured among our undergraduates a faith in their capacity for originality. I acknowledge both Jim Barry and Aine Maria Mizzoni, Chair and Vice-Chair and founding directors of the awards. I wish all of you well as you develop your plans to make the awards available to students from the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
To all the students who made submissions - thank you for pursuing your best so enthusiastically and to all the winners I say congratulations, well done, you are exactly the kind of people Ireland and indeed our world really needs right now. Every success in the completion of your degrees and in your future careers. I am sure we will always be as proud of you as we are this day.
Comhghairdeas libh arís agus go raibh maith agaibh.