REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE LAUNCH OF THE ONLINE EXHIBITION OF PRESIDENTIAL ARCHIVES
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE LAUNCH OF THE ONLINE EXHIBITION OF PRESIDENTIAL ARCHIVES AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu.
Chairman, Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for inviting me to be here this afternoon. I am glad to see so many people gathered to mark the occasion which is perhaps, an indication of the role the National Archives and indeed its website, one of the earliest in Ireland I’m told, has come to play in the cultural life of the country over the past 10 years.
The Archives’ kindly neighbour, the Dublin Institute of Technology, which hosted the website must take some of the credit for the Archives’ claim to fame for being the first State Website in Ireland and one of the first National Archives Websites in the world.
From the very outset, the website has been a huge success, attracting huge numbers of visitors many of them members of our global Irish family. It is very much a sign of the technologically sophisticated times we live in that there are now more “virtual” visitors to the National Archives than there are people who visit in person - a trend that will with little doubt continue especially as not happy with existing record-setting, you have plans for even more website development.
As some of you may already know, I am a firm advocate of having an easily accessible and informative website and I am very involved in the ongoing development of the Áras an Uachtaráin website. The Áras hosted the first live webcast with a head of state in the world a few years ago; more recently developed a virtual tour of the State rooms in the House and earlier this year, we put together a parallel child-focussed website with games and puzzles designed to improve children’s knowledge of the Phoenix Park, the Áras, and the Presidency.
So no surprise in saying that having the Presidential Archives available online means something very special to me. What will be of surprise to many people is the sheer volume and diverse nature of the information available already on your website. Not only are detailed lists of files transferred and available for public inspection on the web but also records relating to the Famine Relief Commission Papers of the 1840s, as well as records of over fifty thousand Irish people sentenced to be transported to Australia in the 19th century. One of them was a McAleese no less – a Daniel McAleese, from Antrim, who was sentenced to be transported for seven years in 1838 but whose sentence was subsequently commuted. But of course that’s my husband Martin’s side of the family – not mine!
At the National Archives, you have to an extent been the victim of your own success – as you make more information available, people want more, demand more, as their appetites are whetted. The reality is that you can’t publish everything on your site – the sheer volume alone would make it virtually impossible but adopting a pragmatic and proactive approach to that insatiable attitude of the public for information, you have set about including samples of the most significant records and online exhibitions – including, I am very grateful to say, an online exhibition of records from Áras an Uachtaráin.
Perhaps of greatest interest will be the files from the first and second Presidencies, those of Douglas Hyde and Seán T. O’Ceallaigh, which comprise the bulk of the series and document the establishment and development of the office. The early files chart the definition of protocol and precedent relating to Presidential functions, - (perhaps I’d better have a closer view at some of them to see if I’ve been duped somewhere along the line!) - including such functions as the signing of bills into law and the summoning and dissolution of Dáil Éireann. Ceremony and hospitality are also common motifs running through the records with a number of files relating to administration of the Áras both as an office and as a home, meetings with the foreign diplomatic corps, and the hosting of receptions for visiting dignitaries.
The records reflect much of the personal interests and pursuits of individual Presidents. Douglas Hyde’s love of music and the Irish language and his love of poetic composition are clearly evident. Seán T. O’Ceallaigh’s personal history of participation in the struggle for independence, and his career as Minister for Local Government and Public Health, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance are also reflected. Eamon de Valera’s love of maths is clear from the files, while his previous career as a political leader of international standing is obvious from the correspondence received from many lands. The files relating to the Presidency of Erskine Childers are from the very earliest phase of that tragically short Presidency and reflect the novelty of office.
While Archives are generally perceived to be weighty and serious, occasionally the records can show the humorous aspect of formal events. In making arrangements for a garden party in June 1943, with 3,000 invited guests, the initial plan to have President O’Ceallaigh and his wife Phyllis greet each guest personally with a handshake was abandoned when it was worked out that to shake 3,000 hands would take about four hours – a complication when the garden party was to last only two! (What perplexes me is the thought of the poor civil servant who was probably tasked with doing the practice run and came up with 4 hours!). An invitation to Maude Gonne McBride to visit the Áras, elicited the reply that in the event of her doing so, she expected President Hyde to make her omelettes and coffee just as she had taught him to do many years before!
The Presidential Archive collection gives us a rare and important insight into the Irish Presidency through the years and for that, on my own behalf and on behalf of past and future holders of this Office, I say thank you to the National Archives, Director David Craig and his staff for this wonderful achievement. Your painstaking efforts to provide this excellent exhibition deserve the highest recognition. No doubt it will be enjoyed by many, many people in the years ahead.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh anseo. Go raibh maith agaibh.