REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO MARK THE BICENTENARY OF THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO MARK THE BICENTENARY OF THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF KING’S INNS
It is a great pleasure to join you here this afternoon to mark the bicentenary of the laying of the foundation stone of this, one of Dublin’s most distinguished landmark buildings. I am no stranger to this place, but I must admit that I didn’t draw quite as big a crowd in my previous role as an Extern examiner.
History has taken us to a very different landscape from that day in August 1800 when Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon laid the foundation stone for this building on the very day the Act of Union was given royal assent. What thoughts and visions those who gathered here then had for this island - or for the legal profession - had, some might say, a different level of robust endurance than the building itself. But this is a day to talk about the building itself rather than history’s ebb and flow.
This King’s Inns building has the enviable distinction of being a creation of James Gandon, that genius of architecture who has left such an impressive stamp all over this city. People will have their Gandon favourites and will argue about which is his greatest legacy but this building has a special claim on Gandon. After his death, Gandon’s son wrote that the design for the Inns was “a favourite study” of his father. It was to be Gandon’s last major project and indeed this dining hall survives as his only major unaltered public interior. As such, it is a treasure to be cherished and that is exactly how generations of barristers have regarded it, none more so than this generation.
I won’t dwell too much on the history or architectural detail of the building, except to point out that the new Inns premises might well have been located beside the Four Courts, rather than here, if it had not been for an entirely uncharacteristic lapse in property sense by the then benchers. Gandon himself had proposed building beside the Four Courts since that was the locus of the old King’s Inns – and no doubt subsequent generations of benchers would have welcomed the saving in shoe leather. Nevertheless, two hundred years on from the laying of the foundation stone, we can agree that the eventual choice of site here on Constitution Hill was an inspired one. We owe our thanks to those benchers for their choice of architect and of course Gandon himself for this great building we are privileged to enjoy these many decades later.
We have another reason for celebration today. As a result of major refurbishment which included cobbling and extensive resurfacing of the area in front of the western façade, we now have some wonderful vantage points for viewing the architecture of the building. The low granite wall for seating and viewing purposes builds on one of Gandon’s own ideas. It is a feature Gandon would surely have been delighted with, believing passionately as he did that all people should derive pleasure from public architecture. I would like to commend the Office of Public Works and the Historic Areas Rejuvenation Programme for the valuable assistance they have given to the project.
The Park around the Inns is now more accessible than ever to locals and tourists alike, and I know this culture of user-friendliness is strongly encouraged by the Benchers and indeed extends far beyond public access to the grounds. Community involvement has been a considerable feature of the King’s Inns in recent years covering a wide range of activities, from school visits to hosting community meetings and social events, to the generous temporary loan of No. 11 Henrietta St, to Educate Together. If there was an image of aloofness attached to the legal profession in the past, this generation has set its face firmly in an altogether different direction. Here tradition and respect for heritage do not stand in the way of forging fresh new community relationships. And of course this celebration, attended as it is by the local as well as the legal community, is in itself proof of how those relationships are changing.
These developments, together with the recent upgrading of educational and recreation facilities at the Inns, are proof of an easy accomodation between new and old, tradition and innovation, at King’s Inns in this first year of a new millennium. They reassure us that we can dare to imagine a comfortably egalitarian society where people care about each other, network with each other, assert their interdependency and mutual respect in imaginative and intuitive ways. This is a good environment and a good ethos in which to educate the young barristers who will help craft tomorrow’s Ireland. Today is a day to take righteous pride in two centuries of the King’s Inns. I can do no better than quote from Dr. Colum Kenny’s fine history of the King’s Inns:
“As it approaches the twenty-first century the King’s Inns shows no signs of fading away. The Society is in a far better condition than was often the case in past centuries……”
Now safely inside the twenty first century, you are proving the worth of those words. I congratulate you on these first two hundred years in this building, and wish you every success in the years ahead.