Speech at a Luncheon hosted by the University of Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute
Chicago Club, Chicago, 13th May 2014
A dhaoine uaisle, a chairde,
Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu.
Mar Uachtarán na hÉireann, as President of Ireland, I am delighted to be here with you all – alumni, students, faculty and supporters of the University of Notre Dame, an institution with such strong and longstanding ties with Ireland. May I thank in particular the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, and its Director, Professor Christopher Fox, for organising today’s luncheon.
The links between Ireland and Notre Dame go back to 1842, when four Irish brothers were among the company of seven who accompanied Fr. Sorin on his journey to South Bend. Over the intervening period, Notre Dame’s Irish connection has grown, evolved, matured – become more reflective even, as that connection itself was turned into an object of study.
The university was founded in the years just preceding the Great Irish Famine, An Gorta Mór, so named because it was the most devastating of a number of famines that beset Ireland in that era – a fateful juncture in our history, which precipitated a great outflow of migrants from Ireland. Those immigrants were fleeing hunger and oppression; they brought with them a strong sense of connection with those they had left behind in Ireland, along with a determination to build a better future for themselves and their children, and a thirst for knowledge and education.
One of my predecessors, Eamon de Valera, then a key figure in the struggle for Irish independence, received a very warm welcome when he visited the University of Notre Dame in 1919. The visit demonstrated Notre Dame’s steady support for the cause of Irish freedom – support which I wish to acknowledge here today, as we are getting ready, in Ireland, to celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising.
As a nation we remain very conscious of the enormous debt of gratitude we owe to those who have left Ireland’s shores over the years. Their hard work, generous help and encouragement to those who remained at home have played a significant role in the shaping and crafting of modern Ireland. The role of Irish Americans was never a peripheral one: Irish America played a central part in the establishment of the independent Irish State and in securing international recognition for Ireland.
Our two countries are bound by a deep and long friendship, and by powerful ties of history and kinship. The impact of the Irish emigrant experience on Irish culture has been creative, as it has been profound and lasting. Our Irish family abroad have played a vital role in the perpetual reinvention of Irish life; the very act of emigration itself forcing a remaking, a reimagining of the self, which breathes new life into many of our customary conceptions and practices. Our writers, artists, directors, actors and performers have retained in their craft much that is fundamental to our essential Irishness while bringing home novel ideas, influences and know-how that have greatly enriched our vernacular imaginations.
The story of the Irish migrant experience, then, is a narrative which charts a deep yearning, amongst our emigrants, to build a good life for themselves in their new homeland, while passing on to their children that deep pride in the culture which shaped their forefathers. It is also the story of how, down through the generations, a new Irish-American heritage has emerged in places such as Chicago – one that has seen the strands of two rich cultures mingling and interacting to create something that is not reducible to one or the other. It is a reflection of the many different possible versions of Irishness that have evolved through successive waves of migration, to a variety of destinations, forming the rich and complex tapestry we call the Irish diaspora. In the contemporary period, one needs only think, for example, of the influence that Irish-American artists such as Chicago’s Michael Flatley have had in transfiguring traditional Irish arts forms and popularising them across the globe.
Here in Chicago, we encounter a foundational example of the constant process of cultural cross-fertilisation between Ireland and the United States in the life and work of Francis O’Neill, who is sometimes credited as the man who “saved Irish music”, and whom I have had the pleasure of evoking during my visit to the Irish American Heritage Center on Sunday.
Born in Tralibane, in the parish of Caheragh, County Cork, in 1848, Francis O’Neill emigrated to Chicago, where he enjoyed a distinguished career in the police force, eventually serving as the Chief of Police from 1901 to 1905. While living and working in this city, O’Neill gathered and published the biggest ever collection of Irish music. His is one of the many, and perhaps best known, stories of an Irish emigrant who made a notable contribution to both his new homeland and his native country. His collection has been described by Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, as “the largest snapshot ever taken of Irish traditional music,” and it is a snapshot that has given Chicago a prominent place in Irish culture.
In a further illustration of the unpredictable course of cultural transfers, which so often take a life of their own, in 2000, a life-size monument of Francis O’Neill playing the flute was erected in the Chicago Chief of Police’s native Tralibane, at the foot of which an open air mid-summer dance takes place ritually every 21st June, the longest day of the year.
Alongside the deep human and familial ties that unite our two countries, business and political networks, as well as institutions – whether educational or philanthropic – play a key role in maintaining, and constantly refreshing and invigorating, the connection between Ireland and the US. Through its fine universities, its great tradition of scholarship, not only has Irish America contributed to the preservation of Ireland’s language and literature, and, as I have just mentioned, to its music, but also to our grasp of our own history. In particular, our understanding of post-famine Ireland, of the late nineteenth century, and the manifold ties between Ireland and the wider world, owes so much to Irish American scholars and those who have pioneered Irish studies.
Institutions such as Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies are a vital link in the chain that joins our two countries. The story behind the foundation of your Institute itself illustrates the Irish immigrant experience in the United States. In Don Keough, we have a shining example of a businessman of Irish descent who realised both the value of education and the importance of nurturing the relations between Ireland and the US. How better to combine the two than to lend his support to the creation of an educational institute dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of Irish culture, history and politics? Subsequently, Martin Naughton, one of Ireland’s most successful businessmen, contributed to developing further the capacity, vision and ambition of this Institute.
For twenty years now, the Keough-Naughton Institute has been introducing students – and not just Irish-Americans ones – to all aspects of Irish culure: literature, history, film, television, theatre, and I know that you are also exploring a new program in Irish music with the World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. It is an impressive programme, an integral part of which is the opportunity for students to visit Ireland.
I have met some of those students who have travelled to our island: it is uplifting to hear them talk, excitedly, about their studies and, even more enthusiastically, about their experience of Ireland – their visit to the Aran Islands; the exhilaration of their first exposure to an Irish music session. These are young people who are forging strong intellectual and emotional links with Ireland. Having them as a part of the global Irish family is a gift for which I would like to thank all those involved in the Keough-Naughton Institute.
I was delighted, too, to learn of the ambitious three part documentary series on the 1916 Easter Rising, a project which has been developed by your Institute using a Sec 481 Single Purpose Vehicle, a funding instrument which I contributed to establishing as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, in the 1990s. The documentary, I understand, involves collaboration with prominent scholars in Ireland, the US and Britain, and it is due to be broadcast in 2016 by PBS here in the US, and by RTE and BBC Northern Ireland back home.
This initiative, which aims at bringing serious history to a wide popular audience, while emphasising the interconnections between our three countries, is a most valuable one, and I would like to commend you for instigating it.
We in Ireland were also very pleased to welcome over 30,000 Notre Dame college football fans and alumni, many of them from Chicago, when they came to our country in August 2012 to support their team in the Navy-Notre Dame football game. Many of you here will be familiar with the expression “the Fighting Irish”: however uncertain its origins may be, this expression encapsulates all that is best in the Irish character – our courage, our perseverance, our resilience. These are traits, indeed, that the Irish people have shown in recent years, as we put our shoulder to the wheel to rebuild our economy. It also captures the spirit of a Notre Dame football team, fighting for a touchdown with the clock ticking down towards zero, standing together, never giving up.
May I conclude by stressing the broad relevance of the Irish migratory experience, beyond those students who are of Irish descent or eager to delve into Irish history and culture. Indeed Irish studies are of great interest to all those who are willing to grasp the complex feelings of belonging that animate their fellow citizens whose lives are now lived in this country but whose individual or familial history reaches back to towns and villages across Ireland, or to towns and villages in India, China, or Nigeria.
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that Irish studies can contribute to forming students who are aware of the rich, convoluted patterns of identity formation in our globalised world; young people who are open to the experience of migrants – an experience which, in both its emancipatory and alienating aspects, constitutes a defining feature of our times.
There is an old saying in Irish which goes as follows:
“Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí – encourage the youth and they shall flourish.”
May I commend all of you in South Bend who, through your teaching, your mentoring, and your encouragements, contribute to enabling this flowering of intellects and consciences.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.