Posted 20 October 2010
President of Ireland: Universities key to re-imagining Irish Society
Delivering the 2010 Newman Lecture at University College Dublin, the President of Ireland Mary McAleese called for a more holistic approach to re-imagining Irish society.
Recent experience, she said, “has taught us that, along with encouraging confidence, entrepreneurialism and leadership, we also need to encourage prudence and risk awareness so that the common good is never compromised again by a blindness to consequences.”
“Are we capable of constructing a universal bulwark against the threat of recidivist foolhardiness?” she asked.
“Will it be enough to construct such safeguards by official oversight and regulation of institutions and institutional practices without also addressing, at a much more intimate level, the everyday human bulwark constructed by the kind of common sensibility that comes from what Newman calls the "philosophical habit of mind" – a habit of mind that actively looks out for ways of thinking and doing that promote a holistic and integrated view of the individual, society and humanity.”
Pictured at Newman House, St Stephens Green (l-r): Mr Dermot Gallagher, Chairman, UCD Governing Authority; Prof Brigid Laffan, Principal UCD College of Human Sciences; Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD; President of Ireland, Mary McAleese; Prof Mary Daly, Principal UCD College of Arts & Celtic Studies; and Dr Pádraic Conway, Director of the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies
“Somehow it seems to me that before we can re-imagine our universities we have to re-imagine our society and our world for all of our universities are placed four square in the public space,” she added.
Emphasising the vital roles of Irish universities in this transformation, President McAleese said:
“Newman's words are a reminder that universities will have responsibility, not just for creating and disseminating new knowledge, but for distilling the previous wisdom gained from both human failure and success into tools for the formation of tomorrow's well-educated citizens.”
“If we are to effectively re-imagine the university for the 21st Century, our challenge is to carry out a creative and critical retrieval of those elements of Newman's ideal that best align with our contemporary aspirations for economic stability, sustainable prosperity and social justice which is both local and global in its sensitivities.”
In conclusion, President McAleese said:
“The development of an educated instinct for all that is "right action" sets a tough and controversial agenda. We have laws and a Constitution that shape the notion of what is right action. We have public criticism to mark the territory of what is wrong action. Our current context is a compelling and also disturbing mix of historic, outstanding, meteoric success and discouraging but hopefully passing disappointment. Our task is to build on all that was good in our success and to make our disappointments a springboard to re-imagine ourselves and our society.”
“We cannot do it without fresh thinking, by which I mean something beyond the superficial or anecdotal, which is always readily to hand with its morbid drumbeat but which may prove a false friend. We need the earnestness, the tried and trustedness of scholarship of the place dedicated to serious, forensic intellectual endeavour; the place Newman describes as "a seat of wisdom, a light of the world." That place is the university where learning and unlearning go hand in hand, where there has been heresy and heterodoxy, partisanship and openness but where there has also been an uncanny ability to re-imagine itself effectively from generation to generation.”
“If our 21st century Irish universities can re-imagine themselves as successfully as they have done to date, then Ireland itself will be more than re-imagined - it will surely be reborn.“
To read the full text of the 2010 Newman Lecture by the President of Ireland Mary McAleese visit: Áras an Uachtaráin
About the Newman Lecture
The 2010 UCD Newman Lecture is part of a broader programme of events at University College Dublin to mark the beatification of John Henry Newman, the founding Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland the antecedent institution of University College Dublin.
Instituted in 2000, the UCD Newman Lecture is hosted by the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies. The Centre is an international forum for research into the legacy of John Henry Newman and the enduring significance of his thought and work.
Through a programme of rigorous research, the Centre aims to preserve and enhance Newman’s legacy in relation to Ireland. Current research includes the IRCHSS-funded project ‘John Henry Newman: Global and Local Theologian’.
Dr Padraic Conway is the Director of the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies.
(Produced by UCD University Relations)
