THE ISLAND of Ireland was at a pivotal moment in its history, President Mary McAleese told the Church of Ireland general synod in Galway yesterday. “We are now at a kind of zero hour, a moment when the direction of our next steps will fundamentally determine the trajectory of our history for generations to come,” she said in her address, the first by a President of Ireland to a general synod of the Church of Ireland.
“What we sow now, generations of Irish men and women will reap for years to come. The seeds of our historic problems were sown centuries ago in political and religious conflicts. Their bitter harvest endured too long,’’ she said.
“For the first time ever, this island has a chance to feel the surging power that comes from working hand-in-hand with one another rather than going toe-to-toe.
“That iconic symbol, the site of the Battle of the Boyne where Williamites triumphed and Jacobites were defeated, has suddenly become a symbol of a new, contemporary friendship and indeed partnership between the children of the winners and losers, all of whom are now winners in this new and generous dispensation.’’
She was “ever-conscious that we are the first generation of Irish men and women who have been privileged to have been granted the potential of altering the course of our island’s history on such a grand and humanly uplifting scale”.
Reflecting on the past, she spoke of “our depressing history of high unemployment and emigration, the mess of distorted relationships reaching east and west, North and South, between Catholic and Protestant, and between our island’s two competing nationalisms, one Irish, the other Unionist – these things are fading into the footnotes of history”.
The past year in particular had seen “an almost miraculous release of positive energies, of softer language, of more respectful relationships, or working partnerships between old enemies who now characterise themselves as colleagues,’’ Mrs McAleese said.
“The tight leash of history has been loosened and we have crossed so many bridges whose load-bearing capacity we were unsure of.
“Now safely across, for the first time, we find ourselves with the hard-earned momentum to take a fascinating journey together, one to make successive generations truly proud.