REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE ON HER VISIT TO DALKEY NATIONAL SCHOOL THURSDAY, 18TH NOVEMBER 1999
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE ON HER VISIT TO DALKEY NATIONAL SCHOOL THURSDAY, 18TH NOVEMBER 1999
Is álainn dom bheith anseo libh inniú agus sibh ag céiliuradh cúig bliana is fiche de shaol an choiste a bhunaigh an scoil seo. Tá dul chun chinn iontach déanta agaibh ó cuireadh an scoil ar bun agus baineann na buachaillí agus cailíní anseo an-leas go deo as aidhmeanna na scoile a bheith dá gcur í gcrích.
I am delighted to be here today to join with you in celebrating 25 years since the establishment of the Dalkey School Project, the initiative which gave birth to this school, and indeed to multi-denominational education in modern Ireland. I would like to express my warm thanks to Chris Lennon and to the Board of Management for their very welcome invitation.
Let me begin by congratulating the boys and girls here for their wonderful musical performance. I thought that everything had changed since I was at school, but it’s nice to see that music is as important as ever. It sounds like there are some future pop stars among you! Of course with all sorts of computers and modern equipment in schools these days, you probably have never heard of tables or sums or spellings or homework. Oh you know all about them? Well, I think it’s a special occasion when the President comes to visit, and gets such a wonderful welcome here, so you should get something special in return. I was thinking that you shouldn’t get any homework on Monday, but maybe you love homework so much that you wouldn’t like that. Or would you? Well I’ll ask very nicely and we’ll see what can be done.
This is a great school, and one of the reasons for that is that you have such wonderful teachers. Sometimes nobody thinks of saying thank you to them, so I think that today we should all give them a big clap as a way of saying thank you.
Now I would also like to say a few words to your parents and teachers. First, I would like to pay tribute to the extraordinary vision of the men and women who came together twenty five years ago to set down the principles which guided this school’s establishment and have been an integral part of its ethos ever since. People like Dr Áine Hyland and Michael Johnson, the current secretary of the Trust, who pioneered new ground in Irish education at a time when it took a great deal of courage and determination to do so. Today we remember their contribution with gratitude - perhaps the greatest tribute we can pay is to recall that the path blazed by Dalkey has been followed by many others. There are now 19 such schools in Ireland, schools which have made multi-denominational education an accepted and deeply respected strand in the tapestry of Irish education, creating a space where children of all religions and none can be educated together.
As we look to the future of education, there is no doubt that further profound changes are on the horizon. We have been transformed from a land of emigration to one of immigration, with a corresponding need to address the issue of inter-cultural education. How will we react to those challenges in the years ahead? As a problem or as an opportunity for our schools to become cradles of inter-cultural tolerance and respect?
There is a saying ‘what is learned in childhood is engraved on stone’. If we engrave badly, teaching our children to fear or despise difference, those lessons will be learned all too well and will come back to haunt us in the years ahead. If we engrave well, teaching our children to be joyfully curious about each other’s differences, to see them as a source of enrichment, those seeds of tolerance will take root and produce well rounded adults of the future, the builders of a tolerant and humanly decent society.
For over twenty years, this school has given a lead in demonstrating how children of different religious backgrounds can be educated together with astounding success. There are lessons to be learned from your experience – lessons which can guide Irish education as a whole as our society embarks on a new, multicultural chapter in its history.
I warmly congratulate you on all you have achieved to date. In particular, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Principal, Chris Lennon, and all of the teachers here for their tremendous enthusiasm and dedication. The fruits of your work are evident in looking around this school – in the way that the children are blossoming under your care, your encouragement and your praise. I would also like to pay tribute to the Board of Management, who in partnership with the parents, have brought to life the vision and ethos of the founders of this school in such a remarkable way.
Guím gach rath oraibh sna blianta atá romhainn. Go raibh maith agaibh.