Clonmany : 1998 Opening Speeches - Marius Harkin and Desmond Kavanagh

Jimmy Doherty, the Latin teacher from Tirhoran, would have taught his students that focus was the latin word for hearth, and so we are coming back to the hearth, and looking around us again, as it were. What we are doing is an important development of our sense of place, and our pride in it, out sense of dúchas. Many many people have left these parts - emigration took its heavy toll for generations. For those like myself who have gone away it will always represent home, and as life has gone on in a way Clonmany becomes our child. This weekend will help us understand the soul of that child better. It is good that we do so for in many ways the past and tradition is the identification of the nation. If we undermine that we can end up by not really understanding who we are as people. I see the McGlinchey Summer School that as both a prayer to our ancestors, and a process of identifying our relationship with the ground that we stand on.

We are very grateful to our eminent speakers who contribute to the core of the weekend, Seamus O'Cathain, Godfrey Duffy, Tom Connolly, Martina O'Donnell, Jimmy McBride and the lnishowen Singers, Conall Byrne and Aodh O'Canainn. They represent a concentration of expertise the likes of which has probably never been assembled in Clonmany before.

Thanks too, to the St. Brigid's Youth Club for allowing us the use of this impressive premises. The old St. Brigid's Cross standing guard on the front doorstep linking our ancient past with the vast ultra modern auditorium inside. It refiects terrific credit on the people who run the youth club and the community that backed them in putting this all together .How proud the people who have gone before us would be to see it all and how we wish they were here to enjoy it. Some of the old timers no doubt would think we have taken leave of our senses but this premises does represent a future that the past could only have dreamed of. The main hall downstairs houses the Exhibition Centre. And the 1938 Schools Folklore Collection will be particularly fascinating when viewed in the context of Professor Seamus O'Cathain's opening lecture. It is a joy to behold and will evoke widespread nostalgia for times past and for people here, and people gone.