President Higgins strikes a vocal chord on West Cork visit
Meitheamh 12, 2015
As President Michael D Higgins continued his West Cork visit yesterday, one thought struck you: This might be the best spoken-word tour the county has seen for many a year.
Pupils form a guard of honour as President Michael D Higgins arrives to officially open Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Uí Choileain, Fernhill, Clonakilty, Co Cork.Pupils form a guard of honour as President Michael D Higgins arrives to officially open Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Uí Choileain, Fernhill, Clonakilty, Co Cork.
Maybe it was sparked by that photograph that did the rounds on social media recently of the President, opened-shirted and beaming, at Slane in 1985, but the sense of occasion around him seems to be growing.
The people came out in their droves to see him and his wife, Sabina, as they officially opened a gaelscoil in Clonakilty, the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, and, on the other side of town, the redeveloped O’Donovan Rossa Memorial Park.
President Michael D Higgins speaks at the opening of the O’Donovan Rossa Memorial Garden in Skibbereen, Co Cork, yesterday
They listened as he switched effortlessly, in that much-imitated accent, between English and Irish, as the years seemed to fall off him. He spoke of the importance of the Irish language, and the arts, the great patriots, and the future — a rollover jackpot of the themes he has addressed down through the years.
It began at Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Uí Choileáin, where the handshakes were for the dignitaries but the hugs were for old friends.
As the visiting committee awaited the President’s arrival, principal Carmel Nic Airt spotted two people approaching. “My past pupils!” she exclaimed, embracing Jesse Cronin and Ria Googan. Twenty years ago, the pair were among the first children in the newly formed gaelscoil, which then operated out of the living room in what are affectionately known locally as “the Smartie houses”.
“We didn’t know any different at the time,” Jesse said. “There was only seven or eight of us in our entire class.”
How it’s grown, now with 350 pupils in a brand new building, and how they’ve grown, but Jesse and Ria’s names are still there, written in the first roll book. When they searched and found them after the ceremony, there on page one, Ria said she might cry.
This is what happens when people make things happen, and when the President comes to say “well done” for doing so in the first place.
When the next presidential election rolls around and people complain about all the fuss, consider yesterday: The number of people who turned out, the obvious civic pride on show, the sense of occasion, the effort that went into it all. The memories.
In Clonakilty the children sang, danced, and even did a bit from the musical Annie — as Gaeilge.
In the West Cork Arts Centre, children danced for the President and his wife, and schoolgirl Lucija Kluzniak Madajczak, in a soft voice, read her own poem, Six Observations of the Owl.
“That was a beautiful poem,” said the President.
In O’Donovan Rossa Memorial Park, men with walking sticks listened intently among the throng as the President repeated Padraig Pearse’s famous graveside oration for Jeremiah 100 years ago, bashing out the words “the fools, the fools, the fools!”, his wife suddenly smiling at the thrill of it all.
Children ran and chased around the grass behind him as he spoke, without a care in the world.
“Lá stairiúil,” said more than one person throughout the day, and as the song from Annie goes: “Toicfaidh an ghrian amach, amárach.”
