Speech for President McAleese for A function in Newtown School, Waterford On Saturday
Speech for President McAleese for A function in Newtown School, Waterford On Saturday, 28 November, 1998
A dhaoine uaisle, ba mhaith liom buíochas ó chroí a ghabháil leis an gCoiste Cuimhneacháin agus le lucht údaráis na scoile as ucht cuireadh a thabhairt dom teacht agus páirt a ghlacadh i gcuid de na himeachtaí a bhaineann le comóradh bhunú na scoile dhá chéad bliain ó shin.
It gives me special pleasure to be associated with your bi-centenary celebrations in this famous school - the longest established second-level school in Waterford. One of the best known headmasters of Newtown School was Arnold Marsh - husband of artist Hilda Roberts’ – whose work is celebrated in the exhibition I had just visited - so it is appropriate that we celebrate Hilda's contribution to Newtown as well as her own artistic achievements. Although she was best known as a portrait painter – she also excelled in her streetscapes and her West of Ireland landscapes – and I understand that the exhibition is soon to go on tour to Dublin, Limerick and Cork.
A jubilee year is always an occasion to look back – to compare then and now – and to see how things have changed. The closing years of the 18th century were turbulent years in Ireland’s political life – with the 1798 Rebellion and its aftermath that precipitated many changes in Irish society that have reverberated down to the present day. For Waterford, it was an era of growing prosperity - of advances in agricultural production - increases in trade and commerce, especially grain exports and the provisioning of the Newfoundland fishing fleets – all of which meant that the Quaker merchants and millers became very influential in the life of the City.
Only last month, I paid a State Visit to Canada during which I spend several days in Atlantic Canada finishing in St. John’s Newfoundland – and meeting with the descendants of many Irish emigrants including Irish fishermen. I was also delighted to send greetings to ‘Bán Chnoic Éireann Ó’ - not in verse as Donncha Rua MacConmara did so beautifully two centuries ago - but via the Internet in a link up between Booth Memorial High School in St. John’s and Tramore C.B.S.
While the events which led up to the opening of Newtown School on August 1st, 1798 have been very well documented elsewhere – like any institution of this great age, there have been many ups and downs over the years. But importantly, Newtown not only survived, by has thrived because of the tremendous support of the Quaker community and their great loyalty to each other.
The quest for truth and the strong spiritual dimension that is and always has been part of the Quaker tradition is all the more relevant today in a world that is coping with rapid change – with the spin-off effects of higher levels of affluence – with pressures on people to succeed in a world where far too often the measure of success is in accumulated wealth. One of the greatest challenges facing us today – and particularly our young people - is the quest to retain our spiritual values in the face of so much materialism and the culture of acquisition. It is all the more important in our fast moving world that we should nurture that important spiritual dimension to our lives – and that we should not lose sight of our religious ethos, whatever our persuasion, as a beacon against which to plot our course in the voyage of life.
Newtown School has been very much a place of learning and education – where young minds have been very well equipped with the tools and skills to go on to further education and successful careers. In describing schooling, William Penn emphasised the importance of “Shaping, Drawing, Framing and Building” within the broader and more academic aspects of education. That philosophy of a rounded education has been the hallmark of Newtown School with Art, Woodwork, Drawing and other manual skills being part of the curriculum long before a formal structure for teaching these subjects was set in schools under the Vocational Education Act of 1930. It is also reflected today in the multi-denominational nature of the school - where pupils from different religious backgrounds learn to respect each other’s beliefs – and to value the wealth of diversity that exists in the world today, just as it did two hundred years ago when Wolfe Tone so aptly put it – “We can form a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of all religious persuasions”.
As Ireland is poised to take a new direction – with the momentous developments in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement – with the ratification of that agreement by the overwhelming majority of the people of this island - the Quaker tradition of co-operation and respect for the individual are a timely example to us all – and a lesson that being Irish does not mean belonging to one tradition or creed but rather being part of that great diversity that makes up Irish society.
In any celebration of the achievements of the Quaker community we should also pay tribute to the Quaker tradition of quiet and unobtrusive charitable work – a virtue that was so respected in the Gaelic tradition – as “Grá Dé agus Grá na gComharsan”. These virtues allied to hard work and honesty in business dealings with others have always been core values in the Society of Friends. Cherishing their proud traditions and their history, and facing the future with hope in God’s goodness has always been part of the Quaker way of life - and is an example of how you can keep you values, your beliefs and your traditions and live quite happily in harmony with those of other religions and cultures who are also part of the mosaic of modern society.
Níl le déanamh agam anois ach buíochas a ghabháil libh arís agus a rá go bhfuil fíoráthas orm bheith in bhur measc agus an comóradh seo ar siúl. Go bhfága Dia an tsláinte agaibh go léir.