Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister this evening to outline what is a very comprehensive and imaginative schools programme as part of the 1916 centenary celebrations. I compliment the Department and its Northern counterparts on the most edifying national Famine commemoration in Newry on Saturday, 26 September 2015. It was most impressive. I was struck by how peaceful and inclusive that event was. It is not to overstate the case to say that it could not have happened 15 or 20 years ago.

I compliment the Government on the State funeral afforded to Commandant Thomas Kent. It was a most edifying and inclusive event. I have spoken about this in the Seanad over the past 15 years in the hope that it would happen. I do not think it could have been done better than it was done in Castlelyons on 18 September 2015.

With regard to the programme itself, something the Minister said near the end of her speech is quite true - there is something for everybody. All interests will be catered for and encapsulated in the programme. The Minister is right about the excitement when the flag arrived. I have heard the same story from parents and teachers. It shows that, given the opportunity, that is precisely the interaction that a school wants with the outside world. It will be a memory for life for those young people. We invest confidence in young people when we ask them to demonstrate what type of Ireland they would like, for example, by asking them to write their own Proclamation. That is important. As one gets a little bit older, one forgets how creative young people are, and young people are creative at a very young age. In this case, the focus is 1916, and if they are given an opportunity in a formal setting, there is no doubt that we will be agreeably surprised by what will come back. Over the years I have seen young people writing dramas. One might expect them to be incomplete, but it is amazing what they are able to do when given guidance and parameters in a school. For that reason, I believe that Proclamation Day, on 15 March 2016, will be exceptionally special. The reading of the Proclamation will be the primary event on that day, but one will find that schools will put their best foot forward and will endeavour to do something very special. If one looks back on one's own school days, when there was a special day in school, one will remember all the preparation that went into that and the sense of achievement when it went well, particularly when there were parents and other people present. I feel that that day will go down as one of the most important days in the childhood of those young people.

What is important about the programme is that much of it is community-based. I have always felt that that is the way it should be. We talk about the commemoration belonging to everyone, and that is particularly evident in a community context. If one looks back over the years, one can see that communities have become very cohesive. We all look back at a time when there were perceived divisions in communities. That is gone, certainly in this part of the country, and hopefully it is happening in Northern Ireland as well. If there is an event that emanates from the community and the community is part of it by hosting and energising it, it will belong to all the people. There will be people there of different political and religious persuasions; they will have no problem once they realise that this is about our history, in the same way that the World War was commemorated. History is history; it is not something that is used to be provocative or otherwise.Moreover, this type of programme will start where it should, namely, with young people. Obviously, other events will be held outside of schools and many young people in school also will be part of them. While they will be coming out into the adult world, they also will influence the adult world as a result of their own experience within the school programme. I also believe this commemoration is being started in the right way because it is being done on the basis that everyone occupies this island for the better and for the good of all people. No Member who enters this Chamber is without an edifying experience of his or her own. Each Member present has experienced the new Ireland, its potential and opportunities and one should not allow oneself to be influenced excessively by some peripheral opinion. As I have stated previously in the Chamber, it was an education for me when the Fleadh Cheoil went to Derry and I remember visiting the Waterside and meeting the loyalist leaders of the bands that time. There was no difficulty in this regard and while they had a perception of me and of what we did and we had a perception of them, it was all laid aside. Thereafter, I received an invitation to go back up and meet these loyalist representatives in the Orange lodge just outside Derry before Christmas. At the lodge, I met husbands, wives and children with the aprons, buns, tea and so on and, genuinely, nobody thought of politics or partisanship. All one really thought of was generous humanity because these were people who wished to engage and I wished to reciprocate and engage with them. If nothing else emerges from the entire commemoration of 1916 next year than the fact of us all going forward with renewed confidence, respect and co-operation, as well as a constructive approach to one another, the commemoration will have been a great success.