Remarks by President Michael D. Higgins as he is conferred with the freedom of the city of Galway
11th May 2012
Méara, Comhairleoirí, Aoidheanna Speisailta, agus a dhaoine chóir ar fad.
I am deeply honoured that you have decided to confer the Freedom of the City of Galway on me. It is a privilege to join the list of Freemen and Women on whom you have conferred this honour previously including Dubhghlás de hÍde, the first President of Ireland and my predecessor. It is a great pleasure to be with you as the ninth person to serve as President of Ireland. It is Galway that is my home and it will always be so. I came to Galway over 50 years ago. There were many comings and goings since, but it is to Galway I will return.
I came to Galway for the first time in January 1961. I had come up from Ballycar, Newmarket on Fergus and hitched my way, getting a lift on the final stage from Gort from someone I would later identify as Brother Cillian. I was to stay in St. Walburgas in Newcastle Park and he delivered me to my first landlady.
Later I would spend many years in St. Mary’s Road under the care, and at times supervision of the late Claire O’Connor. Tommy O’Connor and all of his family were among my first friends and the members of that family remain so today.
From St. Mary’s Road I cycled to Newtownsmyth to the ESB and established a set of friendships that would long survive my two-year stay there.
In those early years of the 1960s what comes back to me as defining Galway is the water – the canals, the Corrib and the sea. I would go with Maurice Canty and Seamus O’Connell for walks along the Prom in Salthill. Micky O’Connor and John O’Sullivan were frequent companions as we discovered Salthill. I am not surprised that the walk on the Prom is something that endures in the memory of so many people.
When I decided to leave the ESB in 1962, and give up the security of my semi-State job, a source of great anxiety to my mother, to go to University College Galway, it was to a college where it was possible to know fellow students not only in one’s own year and subject but in every other faculty as well.
The teaching staff had a healthy component of eccentricity which they were able to practice in both the official language and English. Through participation in the societies a number of us came to know each other from the very first days and it is one of the great joys of my life that so many of us have had our friendships deepen and I am grateful for that. I appreciate it all the more insofar as I would spend so much of my life in the public space.
It was possible in the atmosphere that prevailed in UCG to get satisfactory results from one study but also to participate fully in the life of the societies of the college. I would, in time, have been Auditor of the Arts Society; in a later year Auditor of the Literary and Debating Society, and President of Comhairle Teachta na Macléinn. Others did the same Gearóid na Tuathaigh managed to combine his preparation for a later distinguished historical career with being Auditor of the Music Society; Reachtaire of An Cumann Eigse agus Seanchais and membership of the Students Union.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to make my way into the stories of Galway families who are the very essence of Galway. In 1969 I spent nearly a year talking to dockers when I was preparing a researched report on Galway docks.
Sabina and I and our family have lived in Renmore, Fairlands Park and most recently on Circular Road in Rahoon. On an occasion such as this I would like to thank all of the wonderful people who have been of assistance to us and our family and to those who have been part of our extended family on all of the different campaigns over several decades, our heartfelt thanks.
From the first time I stood for election in Galway in 1969 I have found a reception in Galway for new and radical ideas. Over the years Galway and the world interacted, for example when I went as Mayor of Galway to Central America for the first time with the support and blessing of Bishop Eamon Casey, members of the Council and so many others. It was a privilege to represent Galway at national level in the Senate, but particularly in 1981 to have been elected to the Dáil and go on for twenty-five years to represent a wonderful City and Constituency.
In following years I learned that there was no area of global injustice in which one was engaged for which you would have to pay the price of losing support in Galway. Galway has grown and it has grown not only in population but in the range of its concerns. I will always remember the enthusiastic reception I received when I came back to Galway in 1992 having received the McBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau in Helsinki. The Civic Reception and the response and support of the people of Galway is something I remember with humility and undying affection.
It does this with its own particular Galwegian humour. I would not want to have missed the meetings, the preparations for them, or the journeys home after them from those years attending meetings in 37 Dominick Street or later in City Hall.
It was while I was staying at O’Connors in St. Mary’s Road that I began going to The Swamp and soccer games, and made my progression through Galway Rovers to Galway United which has, and retains, a special place in my heart. One of the things I miss in my present abode is my regular journey to Terryland Park. I try to compensate by going to Tallaght or Richmond Park.
It was a great privilege to have been a Councillor. I was elected to both Galway Corporation and Galway County Council on the same day in 1974 and I would like to express appreciation for all the elected members and staff that I encountered during the nineteen years I served as a Councillor. It was, of course, a great honour to have served as Mayor of Galway on two occasions.
In that time I saw the city change. I saw Galway emerge as a city with culture at its heart. I was in a position to see this happen as for more than a decade I was Chairman of the Galway Regional Arts Committee and saw the work of pioneering Arts Officers like Helen Bygrove and her successors. It was a great preparation for the time when I given the honour of being the first Irish Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.
Galway, as a city of culture, owes so much to those pioneers in the arts, music, theatre, film that made the first case for the importance of the arts for all and for the contribution of culture. Their efforts were rewarded by the support of the City Council and thus, when Galway prepares for an event such as the Volvo Ocean Race. Those preparations will be marked by cultural contributions. It is taken for granted that they are a defining part of what is good.
Through the support of Councillors, Staff, and with the support of the State Galway enjoys a considerable cultural infrastructure; be it the Town Hall Theatre, to which the late Michael Diskin made such a contribution, The Black Box, the newly renovated Taidhbhearc Theatre, Druid Theatre, An Bord Scannáin, and the Film Art initiative – both of which owe so much to the pioneering work of Lelia Doolan.
Bhí an Gaeilge tábhactach i gconaí dom fhéin. An chéad deire seachtain a chaith mé i nGaillimh thug mé chuairt ar an Taidbhearch. Is ansin a chas mé ar an Micheal O hUiginn eile!
Molaim go mor obair Gaillimh le Gaeilge agus iad ag deimhniú Cathair na Gaillimhe mar cathair Gaelach. Caithfhimid a choimead i gcuimhne i gcónaí go bhfuil Gaillimh ar imeall Gaeltacht Chonamara.
May I thank you all, not only for today, but through you to all those people in Galway who made it possible for me to become President. It was a project that might have begun with The Labour Party but which went on to involve the enthusiastic support of so many people in Galway, and how could I ever forget the reception that Sabina and I and my family got on our first return home to Galway after my Inauguration.
Buíochas ó’m chroí dhíbh go léir