REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE GRADUATION CEREMONY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE GRADUATION CEREMONY AT THE NORTHERN IRELAND HOTEL AND CATERING COLLEGE
Thank you for your warm welcome to Portrush, one of the most beautiful parts of our island. It was truly inspired thinking to locate the Northern Ireland Hotel and Catering College here at this popular tourist destination on North Antrim’s scenic coastline. There is no more important day in any college’s year than graduation day and it is a privilege to be here to share this day with the staff, the students and their families for whom this day marks an end and a beginning. My thanks to Professor Ciarán Ó Catháin, Director of the College for the kind invitation to come here today.
Next year, the millennium year, this college will celebrate 50 years of service to the hospitality and tourism industry. Through those years, the college has built up a formidable reputation for excellence in education and training, throughout the island of Ireland and beyond - as we can see from the fact that almost half the student population comes from outside Northern Ireland.
For much of the past thirty years or so Northern Ireland was not an easy place to persuade people to come to nor was it an easy place to develop healthy relationships across the divides of identity and history which have shaped even skewed us as human beings. This College beat the prevailing tides not just in the gravitational pull of its reputation for excellence but in the gravitational pull of its reputation as a place of genuine hospitality where true camaraderie, true friendships flourished and prevailed against all the ambient pressures.
This place has a lot to be proud of. It’s graduates take from this place not just their certificates, not just their skill and professionalism but they take with them the kind of softened hearts this country needs to seed bed and build the new future we dream of and we want with all our hearts.
We live in dramatically changing times for Ireland North and South. Standing on the brink of a new century and millennium gives us a unique perspective, as our minds look both backwards and forwards in centuries rather than years. Looking back we are quickly reminded of the many disastrous brinks our ancestors stood on. As brinks go, ours, the one we face is as good as it gets. Given their choice of brinks most previous generations would knock us down in the race to have ours.
A remarkable economic and cultural buoyancy has made the name of Ireland synonymous with success the world over. A new mood has helped us emerge from under the shadow, from out of the strait jacket of history to build theself-belief, the vision on which the peace process sits. A new generation is looking economic prosperity, global respect and peace right in the eye. No longer are these things in the realm of dreams or mad ambition, one nudge, one stretch of the hand to meet the hand outstretched to meet ours and we are there, walking on that new landscape.
Northern Ireland is particularly well situated to benefit from this changing context. Not only will the growth in tourism generally ensure increased numbers of visitors to this part of the country, but as peace pushes down its roots, an increasing number of international tourists will be determined to see all that Ireland has to offer – North and South. An Ireland at peace with itself and comfortable with the diversity of our different traditions and cultures is a most attractive product, one that will sell itself by itself. So often in the past the old learnt divisions and taught contempt’s suppressed our natural warmth and spontaneity. As we unlearn old ways and embrace the new the natural warmth, kindness, generosity and humour will flow unimpeded, unhindered by old obstacles. The visitor will see a people who are good to each other and good to the stranger.
As a result of recent history, tourism has contributed less to the Northern than to the Southern economy. The past we cannot change but the future we can shape if we take to ourselves the responsibility and the challenge. Already the first fruits of peace have brought rapid and welcome changes in tourism as in so many other areas of life in the North.
Tourism professionals know that development in the North will benefit the South as well, as the number of visitors continues to increase. So this is conspicuously an area where good politics make for good economics – and where, through working in co-operation together we help ourselves while offering visitors from all over the world a unique and memorable experience.
The benefits of a joint-approach to tourism in both parts of the island are obvious and have been recognised by Government, by the promotional agencies and by the industry itself. The “Destination Ireland” brand has been developed in co-operation through the Overseas Tourism Marketing Initiative. And one of the new agreed North/South structures to be put in place as part of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement will be an overseas marketing company jointly owned by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Bórd Failte.
As you graduate today, and prepare to take the path to the future and what it has in store for you, I ask that you pause to reflect on the great contribution that your educators, the staff of this college have made to what you have achieved. They have dedicated themselves to providing you with the gift of education - the key to the opening of minds to new perspectives. As Newman put it, “A man may hear a thousand lectures, and read a thousand volumes, and be at the end of the process very much where he was as regards knowledge. Something more than merely admitting it in a negative way into the mind is necessary, if it is to remain there. It must not be passively received, but actually and actively entered into, embraced, mastered. The mind must go half-way to meet what comes to it from without. . . .”. You have opened your minds, embraced the wonderful gift of knowledge and today you receive due recognition for your achievement. Everyone here takes pride in what you have achieved and looks forward with joyful curiosity to what lies ahead for you in one of the most vibrant, exciting and diverse industries in the world.
When you go and wherever you go, you take the name of this college with you. You are now its ambassadors. Stories about your future lives will filter back and staff will continue to be interested in your progress and proud of your accomplishments for many a day to come. After today they will go back to their work to a new class, a new generation. Their work begins again as yours begins. I know you join me in thanking them just as they join me in congratulating you.
May you know prosperity and may you know peace.
Thank You