REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS ENCOUNTER
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS ENCOUNTER, ÁRAS AN UACHTARAIN ON TUESDAY, 16th OCTOBER 2001
Dia dhaoibh a chairde.
I would like to welcome you all here to Áras an Uachtaráin, a wonderful home to me and my family for the past four years, a home to all past Presidents of Ireland, to Governors General and to British Viceroy. In its art and architecture you will find the history of the people who have shared this island over the generations. They have not always agreed of course but today under this roof you will find important parts of British history, Irish history and our shared British/Irish history. We may look on that history and its stories in very different ways but through it we were shaped and the future we live today was crafted.
Áras an Uachtaráin, once known as the Vice-Regal Lodge has been carefully maintained and preserved. It is, of course a place where we conduct important State business and welcome the many important statesmen and women of the world. But it is a happy and comfortable home, very conveniently situated next door to some very exotic and occasionally noisy neighbours in the zoo. They haven’t come visiting on our side of the fence yet - lucky for us since the nearest neighbours are rather ferocious rhinocerouses! Like most homes in Ireland this is a place of welcome to the stranger and I hope you will feel comfortable and at home while you are here. This day here is yours - a day when this old house hears the young voices of tomorrow’s citizens. Your voices are so important and even more important are the friendships you make with each other because we all want the future to be better, happier, more friendly, more peaceful, than the past. So I hope you will take the chance to get to know someone new here today as well as getting to know the house as you wander around the rooms and the visitors centre.
Many of you will know already my mission as President is a simple one - to build bridges between those of us who share this island so that we get to know each other better, take care of each other better, understand and respect each other better. There are many Irelands. No two people in this room have the same story to tell. Every day people all over our country get up to face very different lives. Some little children in Belfast today are going to school terrified because they live in an area where there is a lot of hatred and violence. Here in Dublin some children waken up to homes where there is no food for breakfast. Others waken up to disabilities or chronic illnesses that make their lives very very hard and demand incredible courage. Still others came here to escape from poverty and persecution in foreign lands and they love Ireland but sometimes they are called names which make them heartsick with worry and full of dread.
In my village years ago there used to be an old homeless man, who smelt to high heaven because he had never had the chance to have a decent bath. He was a gentle soul, harmless and good-natured but he was often made fun of. It was a young Downe’s Syndrome boy who taught us all how to treat that sad old man - he went up to him and hugged him. When he was found dead in a bush during the winter I was often glad he had been given that one hug. We all need to be loved, to be made to feel special and all over the country there are many voluntary groups doing the work that makes people, often sad and neglected people, feel special. Voluntary work can make life worth living which is why given that this year marks the International Year of the Volunteer, I decided that the theme of this Schools Encounter should be to encourage young people to be outward looking, to focus on their community, to become involved in volunteering. I asked you to make contact with a voluntary group and undertake a project together with an objective of improving life in the community. I am delighted in how you have responded. You have shown an enthusiasm and imagination in completing your projects which was truly impressive and it was a delight for me to learn about them. I would like to thank you for the wonderful collages that you brought with you today. I hope that you found the experience rewarding - that you have discovered the importance and value of voluntary work, the very real difference that it can make to improving life in your community and to building a better country. And every volunteer knows the joy of building up goodness, of making us strong through kindness.
We owe much thanks to your teachers for their support and encouragement to you in working on your project and for giving you this opportunity. I hope you will look back some day with appreciation to your school days and the wonderful contribution your teachers make in preparing you for adult life and the many challenges it will inevitably present to you. The trials and tribulations of the teaching profession are I feel to some extent captured in the words of WC Sellar who said “ for every person wishing to teach there are thirty not wanting to be taught.” But I’m sure that’s not the case with the students here today.
I hope you enjoy the remainder of the afternoon. My thanks to our MC, Paul Kennedy and to Orla Kelly the wonderful harpist who entertained us in the entrance hall as you arrived and to the immensely talented Presentation Secondary School Choir led by Veronica McCarron here in this room. My thanks also to Lulu McGann, the Civil Defence Officer for her expert assistance today.
Go maire sibh go léir. Go raibh maith agaibh.