Speech at a Reception on the LE Niamh
Lorient, Brittany, 2nd August 2014
[Lieutenant Commander Heffernan,
Ambassador Montgomery,
Monsieur le Sous-Préfet,
Aotrou Député,
Itronezed hag Aotrounez,
Mignoned Breizh hag Iwerzhon,]
Ur blijadur vras eo bout ganeoc’h en Oriant, e Breizh.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all on board this Irish naval vessel, the LE Niamh. It gives me, my wife Sabina, our Embassy and our delegation the chance to acknowledge the warm and generous welcome we have received since we arrived in Lorient yesterday. On behalf of the crew, may I also thank the city and port of Lorient for the wonderful hospitality extended to the Niamh.
Ever since it entered into service, in 2001, the Niamh has patrolled the seas around Ireland in all weathers, helping to save lives, prevent criminal smuggling operations, and protect our fishing stocks. The Irish people are very proud of their naval service, and the Niamh has made several goodwill journeys such as this one. I feel confident to say that the crew are particularly delighted to have anchored off the coast of Brittany today, a land with such a great seafaring tradition.
The Niamh, like all of Ireland’s naval vessels until very recently, was named after a figure from Celtic mythology: Niamh was the golden-haired and beautiful daughter of Manannán Mac Lir, the sea-god who gave his name to that other Celtic land, the Isle of Man. She married Oisín, the son of the great warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and for many years they lived and reigned together in Tír-na-nÓg – the land of the ever-young, “le pays de la jeunesse éternelle.” So these Celtic undertones even to our contemporary naval matters make the Niamh an especially fitting place to hold this inter-Celtic reception.
I was determined to accept the invitation to attend this year’s Festival Interceltique.
This was partly because of the special connection that exists between the city I call home, Galway, and Lorient. Our two cities have been twinned since 1975, that is for almost forty years. As a former mayor of Galway, I am very conscious of the value of this link – and I am delighted to avail of this opportunity to meet again with the people of Lorient, including my then counterpart and good friend, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian.
But I am also very conscious of the wider depth and significance of the connections between Brittany and Ireland. A profusion of commercial, and hence, in a broad sense, cultural relations, have, from very early and throughout the Middle Ages, brought together Ireland and Armorica, often through the mediation of the island of Britania and thanks, it seems, to the central role played by maritime Tregor. Many churches, chapels and villages across Brittany bear the mark, and often the name, of the Irish pilgrim monks – Columbanus, Brendan, Ronan, Fingar and others – who contributed to the spread of Christianity on the peninsula.
Such ties, of course, are not limited to Brittany: they extend to many parts of Europe, from Luxeuil-les-Bains, Regensburg, down to Bobbio. And although these ancient links to continental Europe have been somewhat eclipsed, in the contemporary Irish imagination, in our popular stories and in our songs, by the great emigration to Britain, America and other regions of the new world, they constitute an essential part of Irish history.
The connections between Ireland and what is today France thus also go back at least 1400 years, to the time of the great wandering monk Saint Columbanus. Over the centuries since then our peoples have forged strong and unbreakable links – through intellectual and religious exchanges, through art and literature, through trade. French soldiers fought for Irish freedom in 1798; and Irish soldiers in exile from their homeland died for the Kings of France.
And it is also important to remember how, just one hundred years ago this month, the very first of tens of thousands of Irish soldiers who had enlisted in the British Army arrived on French soil – and how so many of them lost their lives, or were terribly wounded, on the battlefields of Belgium and in the Somme region in Northern France.
Our connections today are stronger than ever. We are partners in the European Union. France is one of the main markets for Ireland’s goods, services and agricultural products – not least our fish and seafood, a sector Brittany knows well. French is the mostly widely-taught foreign language in Ireland. Over four hundred thousand French visitors came to Ireland last year.
Our footballers, our golfers, our jockeys, not to say our fishermen, often meet in intense and friendly competition. And, if our French friends will allow me to refresh what is perhaps a sensitive memory, in March of this year, Ireland’s men’s rugby team won the Six Nations tournament with a thrilling win at the Stade de France.
But of all the regions of France there is none closer to Irish hearts than Brittany.
I understand that, likewise, nowhere in France is there more interest in Ireland than here. Our landscapes and our coastlines are so similar. Our climates are in dialogue with, and almost equally affected by, the vast Atlantic ocean.
And, of course, we are both the custodians of ancient Celtic tongues that are among the oldest living languages in Europe. Brezhoneg and Gaeilge are perhaps more like cousins than brother and sister, but the fact is that they belong to the same family of Celtic languages: there are important structural similarities between them, and they share many words, from the colour black [dubh/du] to the term for kiss [pog/pok].
Today both languages face the huge challenges, not only of urbanisation and globalisation, but of commodification and pressures on social space and time; both languages live in the shadow of strong international languages, but we are united by a determination to preserve and indeed to renew them. Scholars in our universities and institutes work alongside teachers in our schools and with so many people on the ground to ensure that Breton and Irish are passed on to our children. Of course I am aware that Breton does not benefit from the same institutional and constitutional support as Irish does, and I wish well to the many activists who dedicate so much of their time, energy and passion to creating spaces where Breton continues to be relevant.
The vitality of Breton civil society; the dynamism and determination of its youth in keeping rural areas alive; the remarkable capacity of Bretons to mobilise around collective causes; and the wealth of cooperative projects that exist at local level around matters of social, cultural and economic interest constitute vital resources for the present and future of the people of Brittany. These are features that make your region exemplary in its practice of active and participative citizenship. And I know that in addressing the many challenges of the future, Bretons can draw on a strong sense of their collective identity;
I know that they can draw on their deep feeling for their lively culture and their distinctive past to preserve the name and integrity of their region in the future.
In the words of Paul Ricoeur, “a tradition remains living …only if it continues to be held in an unbroken process of reinterpretation”. An important aspect of this consists in “discerning past promises which have not been kept,” if I may quote Ricoeur:
“The past is not only what is bygone – that which has taken place and can no longer be changed – it also lives in the memory thanks to arrows of futurity which have not been fired or whose trajectory has been interrupted.”
The recent episode of the “Mouvement des Bonnets Rouges,” when a 17th century peasant revolt against the feudal class system was invoked to voice contemporary claims, and whatever one might think of the legitimacy of these claims, provides such a striking example of a tradition kept alive through an awareness of the unfulfilled, emancipatory promises of the past.
Such a conception of tradition as reinterpretation is splendidly incarnated in Breton music and singing. And I am delighted to see so many Breton and Irish musicians and singers feed from and enrich one another’s practice. This kinship, both traditional and modern, will be, once again this year, amply demonstrated throughout the Festival Interceltique, starting tonight with the concert by the superb Irish piper Liam O Flynn, to which I am looking forward.
In Éirinn an lae inniu, is mian linn Eoraip a chruthú agus a mhúnlú a bhfuil níos saibhre in a chumas traidisiúin chultúrtha a shamhlú agus a chur i láthair.
[In Ireland today, we wish to create and to shape a Europe which is richer in its ability to imagine and to realise cultural traditions].
So the contemporary links between Ireland and Brittany are as strong and vibrant as ever. So many Irish people visit Brittany each year, including on board of the Cork-Roscoff ferry, that you have even hired an Irishman as the head of your tourist board. Another real phenomenon of today is the explosion of interest abroad in the traditional Irish sports of the Gaelic Athletic Association – notably football and hurling: the GAA is thriving in Europe, and in France, but nowhere more so than in Brittany.
Few events symbolise the strength of our connection more than the Festival Interceltique de Lorient, which has been thriving since 1971. Ireland is once again the “Nation of Honour” this year and I am delighted that the Irish Government has contributed substantially to its funding. I thank the President of the Festival, Guy Gestin, its Director, Lissardo Lombardia, and their whole team, for the extraordinary work they have done this year, as in past years. Now we all look forward to the delights the Festival has to offer over the week ahead.
Trugarez evit ho tegemer.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir don chéad míle fáilte agus go mbainfidh sibh taitneamh mór as an Féile.