REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE 2003 HENNESSY LITERARY AWARDS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE 2003 HENNESSY LITERARY AWARDS, FOUR SEASONS HOTEL, BALLSBRIDGE, DUBLIN
A cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc tráthnóna ar an ócáid speisialta seo. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an bhfáilte a thug sibh dom.
Good evening everyone.
My thanks to the Sunday Tribune for the invitation to join this celebration of Ireland’s literary heritage in the making. The word heritage almost inevitably turns our minds to the past and to the litany of great authors, poets and dramatists for which Ireland is rightly famous. But each generation produces its own genius and each is entitled to add its own lustre, its own layer and so tonight we salute our literary present and future.
The shortlist for this Award ceremony is fairly cogent evidence that no one here is frozen to a standstill in the headlights of the great literati of the past. Far from it! The evidence is of a creative confidence and assertiveness as the literary offspring of Ireland’s global family draw from deep roots and scattered wells, burnishing today’s Irish and English languages with new conversations and fresh new Irish literature to make us proud, challenged, provoked and reassured.
For writers, these awards confer a welcome level of affirmation and reward that goes beyond a publisher’s faith or the support of a reader, crucially important though they are. The judges are fairly formidable, a jury of the celebrated best of one’s peers, Booker Prize winners, former Hennessy Award winners, these are the canniest of the canny and unlikely to be easily pleased. They are in every sense, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, artists in literature not simply artisans. Facing their judgment, has taken our winners and runners-up well outside their comfort zones but tonight I hope is a vindication of their faith in themselves and a showcase of our faith in them as the best new writers of their generation.
It is a pity that today’s Olympic games do not truly replicate the ancient Games at Olympus with their legendary contests in poetry and prose. If they did, tonight’s awardees might, like their elite sporting counterparts, be heading for Athens to represent Ireland and with the talent we have here we could be very sure of Gold. On your behalf and on my own, I offer the warmest congratulations to all the winners and runners up. I hope this experience of success and recognition from the New Irish Writing award will encourage you to keep looking for "the right twigs for the eagles nest".
Our thanks too to The Sunday Tribune with the New Irish Writing page and the Hennessy Literary Awards. They offer a wide open door with a broad vision of what constitutes Irish and what constitutes writing and a fearlessness about publishing that which is new. Without the new, our literary heritage no matter how great becomes a mausoleum. Only with the new does it remain an ever-changing, breathtaking garden. That heritage has given us fertile soil. These awards guarantee tomorrow’s harvest.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh