ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE WHEN PRESENTING PRIZES TO WINNING ESSAYISTS AT SCOIL CHAITRÍONA
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE WHEN PRESENTING PRIZES TO WINNING ESSAYISTS AT SCOIL CHAITRÍONA, MOBHI ROAD AT 2:30 p.m. ON
Firstly, let me say how delighted I am to be on “Dominican” territory again. As one who spent my formative years – the most important years of my life – in the hands of the Dominicans in Belfast, I get a great sense of comfort and homeliness whenever I set foot on Dominican ground or, indeed, meet up with a Dominican, wherever I go. There’s a special bond, I think, between those of us who were fortunate to have passed through the Dominican ‘experience’ – a bond that lasts for the rest of your life. So when I was asked by Sr. Veronica to do this prize-giving today, I had absolutely no hesitation in accepting – it’s like going home.
- There are many memories of your school days that you bring with you – friends, teachers – and they’re not be any means mutually exclusive! – funny episodes, sports days and the occasional emotional event – all of which leave a lasting impression on your character. I, for example met my husband for the first time at an Inter-Schools debate in the Study Hall of St. Dominic’s – so my school memories are really lasting. The amazing thing is that in all, you spend a relatively short part of your life in school, yet it has the most profound impact – what is learned in childhood is cast in stone. For teachers – your care is a sacred trust, each child a unique, one off model – with God given talents.
- Prizes and prize-givings are also events that remain very much in your mind throughout life. I suppose it’s because they are, in a sense, the building blocks of your future in school or college and in your career in later life. For everybody who took part in this competition, it represents a great deal of research and hard work in the preparation of your essays. I’d like to congratulate those who will be taking home prizes or commendations today, and to wish everybody who submitted an essay, success in your future academic work. But everybody who took part is, in a sense, a winner. The experience itself has been an invaluable education. And human rights education is one of the most important aspects of school life, especially today when we can so easily see the extent of human rights abuses that still exist throughout the world.
- Last December, I was privileged to attend the closing ceremony of the European Year Against Racism – a year which saw many events to highlight the extent of racial discrimination in society today. This essay competition is, of course, one of the events organised as part of the “Year Against Racism”. At that ceremony, I made the point that it wasn’t really a closing or an ending – but a new beginning – a new attitude to creed and race, based on understanding and tolerance, and on the practical expression of our basic religious ethic. Now that we’ve started the process of ‘unpacking’ the baggage of suspicion, of fear, of envy and jealousy, shouldn’t we continue to build on that process.
- For you today, we are bringing an experience to a close, but we are also marking a new phase in your lives when you start to build on what you have gained from the experience and apply it to your future work and life. In preparing your essay for the competition, you have had to look around and to recognise that racism is not something that exists “over there” – it’s not somebody else’s problem. It’s our problem – it exists in our country, our county and our town. You have taken a step on the ladder of enlightenment. You have opened your minds, and it is incumbent on all of you to pass on what you have learned to this and future generations. What you have learned in working for this competition is now “cast in stone” – but not, I hasten to add, a stone to be buried!
- I see that the prize-winners today come from Scoil Chaitríona here on Mohbi Road, from St. Dominic’s in Cabra, from St. Mary’s School for Hearing Impaired also in Cabra, from St. Dominic’s in Ballyfermot, and from the Dominican College in Wicklow. I would like to pay tribute to all of the winners and the entrants for making the great effrot, and to your parents who’ve encouraged and supported you in your work. I would also like to commend the teachers and the school authorities for their work in promoting the competition. I think special tribute and thanks are due to Sr. Veronica McCabe and the other members of the Dominican Sisters Justice Commission for their contribution to the 1997 European Year Against Racism in organising this competition and, of course, for inviting me to be present at this ceremony.
ENDS