REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE ECUMENICAL SERVICE IN DROGHEDA FOR THE OMAGH VICTIMS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE ECUMENICAL SERVICE IN DROGHEDA FOR THE OMAGH VICTIMS MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1998
All of us are here today because of an event – an awful event in our recent past. We are here because we want to identify with those who suffered so terribly in Omagh on that warm sunny day in August when so many lives were halted – and so many others were affected in a profound way. We are here too because none of us wants to see a day like that ever again on this island.
As the passage of time starts to temper our grief and give us cause to reflect further on what happened – we see ever more clearly how futile it is to resort to violence and destruction. And we realise that we owe it to the memory of those who so tragically died to ensure that the minds of those who perpetrated this terrible injustice are never again allowed to hold sway in our community – that their actions are never repeated. We are here too because we know that we must learn from the past to allow us to use the present well, so that we might change the future for the better.
Later this week I will be travelling to Messines in Belgium to inaugurate a Tower of Peace with Queen Elizabeth and King Albert of Belgium. The Tower is to commemorate all those thousands of Irishmen from the four provinces of Ireland who lost their lives in the service of the British Army during the First World War. In the culture of conflict that we have come from – the turmoil of the War of Independence and its aftermath – the imperative of achieving a national identity in a fledgling State – the uneasy co-existence with Northern Ireland and its Britishness – people found themselves obliged to choose their loyalties between those who served in the British Army and those who stayed at home to engage the British in the pursuit of independence. Inevitably, it became impossible to take parallel loyalties along with us – you were either for the men of 1916 or for the men of the 1914-18 War – you couldn’t offer respect for all their memories – they became mutually exclusive.
Today, Ireland is a changed place – a modern country which has broken through the barrier of isolation – a country with a level of cultural and economic prosperity achieved through looking outward rather than inward. We are part of the digital age – an age when it is not only possible but essential to work in parallel streams of thought. It stands to reason then that we should now be able to bring all sides with us – that we should have the maturity to recognise history for what it is - a part of our shared make-up – something that has brought us to where we are today – yet importantly, something that we should not continue to live and re-live in a blinkered world of intangible memories and romantic hopes. Today we face new realities and new potential.
Like the digital technology which brings multiple channels of communication and ideas into our homes and lives, we should be prepared to cope with multiple loyalties, cultural disparities and differing identities in a society that embraces and cherishes diversity as the essence of its existence.
As we gather to honour the memory of the victims of the Omagh bombing, we hope and pray that the process which has brought us the historic Good Friday Agreement, will bring us to a new level of tolerance on which we can build a future of peace and love as Christians. Some day soon we hope the world will look at Ireland and say – we know they are Christians by their love.
ENDS