REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE RE-UNION OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE RE-UNION OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST FRIDA
Firstly, let me say how much of a pleasure it is to be here this evening – to see old friends – to meet up again with people with whom I spent the really formative years of my life – those years of college life at Queens. I am delighted also to have been invited to speak to my fellow and sister alumni and to share with you some of my thoughts on the influences and impacts that Queens had on me – and on the way it fits into all of our lives today.
Somebody once said that “a university is a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed”. In his graduation address to the Faculty of Humanities in July of this year, Professor Leslie Clarkson spoke about what we have learned at Queens – “Most obviously, we have become sufficiently expert . . to survive. If we have applied ourselves assiduously we have gained a mastery of the facts of our disciplines . . . . and perhaps an understanding of the theories underinning them. We may also have acquired an appreciation of the relationships between one field of study and another. It is a self-evident truth, though, that that which is learned with great effort can be forgotten with ease. So what is left when the factual baggage has been discarded? It is education.
A friend of my mother’s was talking to her when I was starting at Queen’s and asked what I she was sending me to do. “I’m going to educate her to be a lawyer”, she said. “She’s naturally argumentative and very good at poking her nose into other people’s troubles – so she might as well get paid for her time and effort”. I remember well the first day I came to Queens – the feeling of sheer awe at the scale of the place - the Lanyon Building with its chequer-board entrance, the untidiest hallway in Ireland – and yet one that is now warmly familiar and today softened greatly by the hospitable Visitors Centre. I never cross the Lanyon threshold without that same sense of both awe and familiarity.
Coming out of a secondary school system at an age when you start to have confidence in your own views and ideas – coming out of a system which is primarily focused on ensuring that you have the rudiments to qualify for university – there is a tremendous feeling of freedom or release from the constraints of school – from uniforms – from what you perceived to be petty disciplines – from the watchful eye of those who you were to realise only much later had your best interests at heart.
I started at Queens at the beginning of the period of turmoil in Northern Ireland which is now in the process of drawing to a close. But for my class and those who followed over the next quarter of a century – the backdrop of a changing society – of a society in conflict – has been an additional influence on the directions we all took though college and in later life. For many of us – children of families who had never before had the ‘luxury’ of a university education – children liberated by the farseeing policymakers and administrators who knew that education was the key to progress – this was a veritable revolution.
In the process of coming to terms with your new liberty, you make new friends at university and forge new bonds with contemporary kindred spirits. You come to terms with the magnitude of the step you have taken – and revel in your new-found status as a “student” – with all the baggage and expectations that that sobriquet attracts. Throughout those significant years of character building and development that takes place at college, each of us brings something of our own background with us – something of the traditional values with which we were reared. Through all facets of university life – the friendships, the romance, sport, debates, political argument, entertainment – all part of the “Queen’s experience” as the Vice Chancellor recently called it - you see your own lives in a different light – and you begin to form your long term perspectives on where your life is going.
My background – with family connections in County Roscommon – being part of a large family – and living in the Ardoyne – gave me my own perspective. I know that throughout the last thirty years the conflict in Northern Ireland has acted as a glass wall for southerners – witnessing but not quite involved – not quite understanding the full depth of feelings or the significance of beliefs and customs. That has meant that for an entire generation a considerable number of people have been out of touch with the people with whom they share the same piece of God’s earth – the island if Ireland.
But that is changing and has been on the turn for a number of years now since the prospect of a solution has made people realise that it is a process that will involve each and every one of us on the island. People an all sides are seeing that there are others with a different sense of national and personal identity – with different ways of expressing that identity – and with firm views on where they see their future lying. In parallel with the political process that has brought us to the new beginning – there is a quiet change taking place in communities and parishes – in sport - in the arts – and in community work – a change in attitudes that is opening up the doors that were held firmly shut be fear, hatred and prejudice.
When I started work in Dublin I was only one of a number of people from Northern Ireland who started their working careers in the South. As a northerner – but with southern connections – I was in a position to see both sides. For many in the South, understandably, the cost to them in economic terms of the conflict was a source of bitterness. For some, it was a ‘cause’ - and for many others it seemed to have no resolution. Today, thankfully, we have reached a new pass – a spirit of hope and self-confidence is growing by the day that things are at last changing. It would be difficult to single out one particular reason for that change – for there are many. Over the last thirty years in tandem with the Northern Ireland conflict – and maybe at times because of it – society in Ireland has been changing. Education has played an enormous part in that change – and has opened up minds and hearts to possibilities that were never even dreamed of before. That process is unstoppable so long as we value education.
I would like to think that my election as President at this particular time in our history will add to that process of understanding and acceptance. Many of the visitors to my home at Áras an Uachtaráin – especially those who espouse their British heritage and tradition – are amazed that a place which was of such significance in our history – a place which reflects the centuries when it was the centre of British power in Ireland – should be preserved and celebrated as part of the national identity – as an important contributing element to our Irish ‘personality’ of today.
That that is so, is a reflection of the level of maturity that we now have – that we are not content to edit or excise the past – or parts of our past – to validate our concept of what we would like to be. We are, after all, our history. Only the other night I opened an exhibition by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association in the Dublin Civic Museum – which commemorated the lives and roles of Irish Regiments from the four provinces in the Great War. Many of those present were descendants of those who served – and there was a palpable sense of relief that their secret was out – that the memorabilia that had been confined to shoeboxes and dressers could be brought out in celebration of those who were proud to wear their regimental uniform – but who had been forgotten about in the polarisation that followed those turbulent early years of the century. Each of the Regiments had their own identity – each had their own stories to tell of campaigns and battles – and of the people who served in them. The identities were shaped by the regions from which they came – but they shared a common goal and fate. To me that was a landmark event – another sign that we have come of age – that we can have the confidence to accept our history and see it for what it is – part of all of us.
There is much work to be done before we can pat ourselves on the back – but it is through association like ours that contacts can be made and maintained – and that new horizons can be reached. As I said earlier – the changes that have taken place over the last thirty years have been largely facilitated by education – by greater access for more people. As alumni, we are very much a part of that process and we have an obligation to continue to find ways to create a better society.