REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE, AT THE OPENING OF THE HELIX CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT DUBLIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE, AT THE OPENING OF THE HELIX CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
Cuireann sé áthas orm bheith anseo libh um tráthnóna. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an gcuireadh agus as an bhfáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I am delighted to be here this evening to perform the official opening of The Helix Centre for the Performing Arts. My thanks to Professor Von Prondzynski and the members of the Governing Body for their kind invitation to join with you on this momentous occasion in the deepening history of Dublin City University.
The Helix Centre represents a truly stunning achievement for this remarkable University and its friends. It is also a wonderful gift to our capital city and our nation, to add a concert hall, two theatres, an art gallery and numerous artists’ studios to our cultural resource base and contemporary cultural life.
A proposal for an Arts Centre featured on the Master Plan for the Campus some twenty years ago when the University’s first President, Danny O’Hare, had a vision of what he referred to as the North Dublin Arts Centre. The scale and magnificence of what has been built I’m sure far surpasses even what Danny envisaged.
A story of partnership and generosity lies at the heart of the Helix story. Exchequer funding of €6.35m was complemented by considerable support from the private sector and indeed without the generosity of people like Tim Mahony of Toyota Ireland who was the project’s first donor and private champion, it is unlikely we would be here today. Tim’s support of the Irish Youth Orchestra and the Dublin Grand Opera Society are examples of his commitment to the Arts, and it seems exactly right that this marvellous Mahony Hall, in which you are now seated will be a Centre for Excellence in Music Performance.
This is just one of three performance spaces providing first class opportunities to stage the work of touring theatre companies, presenting work of every possible form of entertainment, from classical drama to modern experimental work. The Art Gallery will showcase the work of the Artists in Residence and will provide an opportunity for young artists to work in a collective, creatively dynamic environment, with ready access to the buying or commissioning or curious public. The result of the hard work of the design team, the contractors and theatre consultants is a state-of-the-art complex, a place with real attitude, with a ring of confidence and assertiveness about it that speaks of the fact that it is not only purpose-built but purposive. This place is determined to be a centre of gravity at the heart of a University, which in a short space of time has carved out a place of righteous pride for itself as one of Ireland’s leading academic showcases of excellence.
Remarkably, although DCU is one of the youngest universities in Ireland, your already solid reputation has secured delivery not only of this Centre, but the completion of the Engineering and Research Building, the advanced Library and Information Resource Centre, the ongoing construction of a new swimming pool, and new student residences.
This is a place people have faith in and it is easy to see why. This is a university driven by a vision of inclusion, a vision of unlocking the widest possible talent base, of community outreach into places and in ways universities traditionally did not contemplate, a vision of being radical empowerers of a new generation, so that each is better equipped, better skilled, better rounded, than the generation before.
This Centre will play no small part in delivering DCU’s forceful vision of university and community - university and the individual interlocked in a shared quest to bring out the best in each other and to do the best for each other. If DCU is proud today as it is entitled to be, I think that pride extends far beyond North Dublin as it should, for not only do we have this evening’s exciting music to look forward to, but we have the prospect of a new era of artistic adventure stretching out ahead of us. A new name will quickly become a household one as the Helix Centre introduces Ireland to its own genius, and reveals to us our own talent. The Arts are not the icing on the cake but rather the leaven and the Helix Centre will prove that time and again in the years ahead.
I am delighted to declare The Helix Centre for the Performing Arts officially open. May it have many days like today and as its unwritten story unfolds may its success vindicate the faith of those here this evening whose determination made it happen.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.