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Christmas Message from President McAleese, 2009 |
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Thursday, 24 December 2009 |
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Warmest Christmas and New Year greetings to everyone here in Ireland
and to our Irish family and friends who are scattered all over the
world. Christmas is a time of gathering for family and community
celebrations and though 2009 was a year that sorely tested many people,
it was surely a year when community triumphed. Towards the end of the
year, Ireland saw flooding on an unprecedented scale take its savage
toll on homes, farms and businesses and many families are still coping
with loss and displacement. Yet we also saw a flood of a different
kind, a flood of spontaneous help, generosity and good neighbourliness
that brought much needed support and hope to those who were close to
despair.
2009 was also a year when the floodgates of suppressed truth opened for
adults whose childhoods had been damaged by abuse. Patrick Kavanagh's
poem To A Child says - "Child there is a light somewhere/ Under a star/
Sometime it will be for you/ a window that looks/ inward to God." Two
major reports opened Ireland up to unpalatable facts about trusted
institutions of Church and State which put children's welfare low on
their scale of priority. Once again the community gathered in
solidarity around those hurt and wounded and registered a determination
that the future will be very different.
The economic shocks of 2009 brought job loss and money worries to a lot
of homes as well as a pervasive malaise. Historically high numbers of
people have turned for help to community based organisations and
charities. Here too we have seen the character and resilience of our
people express itself in the huge increase in volunteering reported by
community organisations and in the response of the public to pleas for
financial aid for those in need.
In the coming New Year we have the opportunity to renew our country by
our efforts as individuals and as community to one another so that as
Kavanagh says in his poem Hope, "April will dance in our heart's
ballroom/ We shall survive/ hope will sustain."
The precious gift of peace once thought to be an impossible dream is
quietly growing and changing the face of this island, radiating a
powerful message of possibility to the many parts of the world where
conflict wasted lives so needlessly. The prosperity of the Celtic Tiger
years has also left its mark, some of it dreadfully chastening but much
of it essentially good for it transformed Ireland into a
high-achieving, ambitious and confident nation. Now it is our task to
consolidate the peace and restore a sustainable, sensible prosperity.
That work which is the job of all of us will, in time, bring a welcome
flood-tide of good to our people. That is our hope and our prayer for
the coming year. May it be for each one of you a year that surprises in
ways that lift the heart and the hopes.
Mary McAleese
President of Ireland
As Gaeilge
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