REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF HER VISIT TO SHANNON COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF HER VISIT TO SHANNON COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS TUESDAY, 10TH APRIL, 2001
Tá áthas orm bheith anseo i bhur measc inniú. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iul daoibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to visit this beautiful part of the country, and to open the Irish Pottery Visitors Centre. My thanks to Trevor Morrow for the kind invitation which allows me to share a day so special to all of you, a day long worked for.
During these past decades Ireland and her people have gone a new journey on the road to understanding disability and making space for the voice of those who live with and work with disability. There is a destination we all want to get to. It’s a place where every human being is given the chance to get to know their own talents, to get to use all their talents, to live a fulfilled life, to know that terms like equality and respect, rights and dignity translate into a life lived on terms we are all proud of. We are not there yet but with your help we are moving in the right direction. With your guidance the public have grown in awareness that those who live with disability of one sort or another can also be highly skilled in other ways, that their daily dealings with disability make them people of extraordinary resourcefulness, character and discipline, role models for future generations of able-bodied and disabled alike. I am particularly proud of the fact that the Pottery Factory is an integrated workplace where people are recognised not in terms of their disability, but by their ability – their work and their skill.
The wisdom and experience of organisations such as the Shannon Community Workshop is vitally important. It is an authoritative voice of people with disability and an educator of each of us as members of a community with responsibility for each other. And you do it so effectively for each piece of pottery made here and sold on takes your story to a wider and wider audience.
Irish Country Pottery has won a special place in the hearts of the Irish public with over ten million pounds worth of sales in the past ten years. In practically every house across the country your work is on display in cabinets or shelves or else it’s in daily use in the kitchen - what a tremendous tribute to your craftsmanship.
I understand that the factory has become so popular on the visitor trail that you have recently opened a new showroom and coffee shop for the convenience of your customers. Both of these projects will provide a wonderful advertisement for your wares among the general public as well as providing employment locally – my heartiest congratulations to you.
The story of Irish Country Pottery is one of remarkable achievement and I wish all involved every success in these improved facilities.
Shannon Community Workshop is an inspiring example of the tremendous abilities of people with disabilities given the right support and encouragement.
And the support which the Workshop and Board has received from the surrounding industries over the years in offering employment to trainees, in so many other ways, has been tremendous.
Today is a great day for Shannon Community Workshop and for everyone who has supported them over the years. It is a day to take pride in all your achievements, in the steady growth you have made and the many successes you have chalked up together. The refurbishment of the Pottery Factory and the establishment of the new showroom and coffee shop constitutes another milestone in your long and distinguished history of service to people with disabilities.
It gives me great pleasure to formally declare these new facilities open and I wish the Board and workers of Shannon Community Workshops Ltd every success in your future endeavours.