O’Conall Street

I  am lucky to have some great friends. The lads with whom I will travel to the Somme in February are a true band of camaraderie. In the North one man has been with me through the ups and downs of life in the ‘other Ireland’. Peter Coll and I have a Christmas tradition. We gift each other drink, good drink. Good whiskey and good wine have been exchanged over a decade and more. Peter has also gifted me a good few books. Fair deal in my mind as he is a learned barrister of some standing and I am in need of intellectual nourishment and enrichment. This year was no different and a collection of great Irish Speeches appeared under the tree on Christmas. Compiled by Richard Aldous and with a foreword by the brilliant Colm Toibin it has been delighting me for three days now.

 The compendium spans Irish politics from the late eighteenth century to date. The first words go to Henry Grattan, addressing the soon to be abolished Irish Parliament on College Green in April 1782: ‘I am now to address a free people…..’the last to An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, delivered to both houses of Parliament on the 15th of May this year:  ‘Ireland’s hour has come: a time for peace, of prosperity, of old values and new beginnings. This is the great lesson and the great gift of Irish history. This is what Ireland can give to the world.’

In between these words are the past twenty two decades of fractured politics and unfinished projects. Of blood and tears and the division of our people. Hume is there, as is Paisley (the man of peace). Adams, Carson, Yeats, deValera, Lemass, Browne, Davitt, Craig and Davis stand out. ‘I stand by the Republic’, Des O’Malley’s defining speech also catches the eye for its sheer quality as does David Trimble’s Nobel acceptance speech which so famously acknowledged that the North was for a long time ‘a cold house for Catholics’.

In 2008 many new speeches will be made. As a PR man they are the ultimate expression of ideas and for me the strongest. They may attempt to chart the next decade or simply deal with the issue of the day. All will be delivered with conviction but only one or two, if that, will become historic. 

I hope 2008 sees some historic speeches. I hope a major figure rises to challenge the elephant in the room on this island. Scanning through the two centuries in this book it is a constant theme. We achieve great things, we do great deeds but still we live with the bogeyman of sectarianism at the very table at which we dine.

It will be a brave leader that stand’s up and says it is time to stop the sectarian imperative. An even braver one that challenges the existence of the problem in the Republic as well as the North. But that politician, if it is a politician, will have done the island a great service and will have earned his or her right to sit between the covers of great books. The speech will be the start. Tackling the problem will be the revolution. Abraham Lincolon noted wisely in his Gettysburg address: ‘The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they have done here..’

That’s my big lesson from this wonderful gift. We have talked the talk. Wolftone and Hume have been vindicated in words, Paisley has found peace in his rhetoric and an Irish Prime Minister can address the mother of all Parliaments as an equal. Hope and history in the great poet’s words are beginning to rhyme on paper at least. But words without action are hollow. Great speeches are just inspirational collections of words. History remembers events. Let 2008 be the beginning of the era of fulfillment. An era which as well as witnessing great speeches sees real change. An era in which the challenges of a new Island are seen as opportunities not threats. In which the light is shone on the white elephant of sectarianism. In which our people are empowered and in which fear leaves our speeches, our politics and our lives. 

My pledge for the new year : to do my bit to point at the elephant and call it what it is, a cancer that needs treated aggressively and a cure found.

There is simply not greater gift than a book. Happy new year. 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Business, Celebrity, Consumer, Personal, Politics, Public Affairs, Science, The Media, Unfiled. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.