SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE 10 YEARS OF THE DUBLIN CIVIC TRUST
SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE 10 YEARS OF THE DUBLIN CIVIC TRUST MONDAY, 11 NOVEMBER, 2002
Is mór an pléisiúir dom bheith i bhur measc inniu ag an ocáid seo agus tá me buíoch díbh as an chuireadh a thug sibh dom teacht anseo.
I am delighted to join you this afternoon to celebrate ten years of the achievements of the Dublin Civic Trust and I thank Tom Hamilton and the Board of the Trust for their kind invitation.
Dublin Castle is as good a place as any on this island to remind ourselves that cherishing our past as a treasure and a resource, is far from incompatible with being a modern forward-looking nation. In fact our contemporary relationship with this historic and once dreaded place is itself a measure of our maturity as a nation and an indicator of the how well we are coming to terms with our colourful and complex history. The same could be said too for Áras an Uachtaráin, today recognized as a place which is a unique repository of a political, social and cultural history shared by people of very different perspectives and political ambitions, a history we cannot change though it changed us.
The politics and social vanities of past eras still conspire at times to provoke heady passions and to exert a certain gravitational pull on the politics of the day but nowadays the great architectural legacy generally manages to transcend the politics of division and to draw interest and respect from all sides.
Today’s citizen has a much deeper awareness of the importance of our architectural heritage as an essential community and a national resource. Month in and month out I visit local communities across Ireland whose vision for regeneration in their area started with the careful restoration of an historic but run-down building. Just as you created a new future for your own headquarters and other vulnerable old buildings so too work-houses, creameries, market squares, schoolhouses, convents, great houses and many more have all become sources of a new dynamic at the heart of people’s daily lives, lifting their appreciation of place, enhancing their quality of life and generating civic pride, both in our past and in our present. At the back of each successful restoration or conservation project is a champion whether an individual or an organization with an unshakeable commitment to the protection and conservation of our architectural heritage and of course the Dublin Civic Trust is itself an important champion. Your work helps us to look at our streetscapes differently. You bring them to life with voices from the past. You create connections of appreciation between past and present and you sensitise a new generation to its role as custodians of that past.
I used to pass along Pearse Street every day on the way to work or leaving my children off in the Trinity College Crèche, absorbed more in the traffic than in its past but since learning from Katriona Byrne’s book that Laurel and Hardy stayed there that street definitely has taken on a new lustre. It is, of course, only one of a series of books published by Dublin Civic Trust with EU assistance through which our capital city is opened up to us, and our imaginations are opened up to it. Your plans to continue the inventory of the Historic Core of the City and of Dublin's historical squares - Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square, Parnell Square and Mountjoy Square will fill those familiar scenes with vibrant forgotten memories and refreshen a new generation’s interest in them.
Your achievements to date are impressive. The painstaking work involved in the Historic Heart of Dublin Project which you undertook with Dublin City Council, has greatly enhanced the ability of the Planning Department of Dublin City Council to properly plan the future development and protection of the City. Your Postgraduate Diploma Course in Recording Historic Buildings has created a vital cohort of skilled graduates and future champions of our built heritage. And of course your longstanding work with young people is the essential seed-bed of a future where care for the built environment is second nature. Your plans to develop further training initiatives and to fund more restoration projects tell of an organisation coming more and more into its stride, pushing out the boundaries of its own ambitions and achievements. No one organisation could hope to protect the entirety of our built heritage. It demands a mosaic of effective integrated effort from government, local authorities, planners, developers, individuals and the community. It is reassuring to see the legislators driving forward a far-sighted new agenda with the establishing of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage on a statutory basis and increased legal protection of the built heritage incorporated into the planning legislation. These initiatives too tell of a country that is better informed and better educated about these issues. The Dublin Civic Trust has played an important role in mainstreaming these past ten years. I would like to take the opportunity of this significant birthday to commend and thank Dublin Civic Trust for the leadership role they have exercised over the last 10 years in mainstreaming the issue of our architectural heritage. Your President, Professor Kevin Nowlan, board members and CEO, Geraldine Walsh will I have no doubt make sure that the next ten years are as productive and rewarding. I wish you every success.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh go léir.