Mary Immaculate College Graduation
Friday 23rd October 2015
Time: 15HR00
President’s Address
Mayor of the Metropolitan District of Limerick, Councillor Jerry
O’Dea
Chair of An Bord Rialaithe, Bishop Brendan Leahy,
President of the University of Limerick, Professor Don Barry,
Trustees of the College,
Members of An Bord Rialaithe,
Members of the Governing Authority of the University of
Limerick,
College Staff and Students,
Distinguished Guests,
Parents, Family, Friends and Graduates of the Class of 2015
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Tá an-áthas orm céad míle fáilte a chuir romhaibh uile go dtí Coláiste
Mhuire Gan Smál inniu. It gives me great pleasure to welcome
you to this ceremony today.
Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person ever in 2014 to be
the recipient of a Nobel Prize. At 17 she became a Nobel Prize
Laureate for her struggle against the suppression of young
people and children and the right of all children to education.
Malala came to international prominence following an
assassination attempt by the Taliban in her native Swat Valley in
northwest Pakistan, where girls were banned from attending
school. Malala had been writing a blog on her life under the
occupation of the Taliban and her views on promoting education
for girls in the Swat Valley. Her advocacy for education became
the subject of a documentary by the New York Times. Following
her recovery from the assassination attempt on her life she had
been the recipient of numerous international awards. In July
2013, on her 16th birthday, she spoke at the United Nations
headquarters in New York. In her address she declared that ‘one
child, one teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world; education
is the only solution; education first’.
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It is that same ‘education first’ that we are celebrating today.
Education is a movement of formation that enables the
individual to play their role in transforming society for the
common good.
As this graduation ceremony is drawing to a close I would like
to extend my warmest congratulations to the Class of 2015 for
arriving at this milestone in your lives. I share your pride today
and I delight in your presence.
Almost 650 students will graduate today at two ceremonies with
awards for undergraduate programmes, graduate diplomas,
postgraduate degrees both taught and by research and 9
students will have received doctoral degrees. These ceremonies
mark the high point of the College’s year as we acknowledge the
achievement of our students.
The ceremonies this year are particularly special as we mark the
conferring of our 100th PhD Graduate – this is a very proud
achievement for us as a College and I want to congratulate those
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who have received these doctorates and my colleagues who
supervised their work.
For those who are graduating today, we at Mary Immaculate
College are confident that you have been prepared not only for
a successful career but also for a flourishing life. In this place you
have developed your knowledge base, honed your intellectual
skills, and have been invited to explore values that highlight
who you are as a person.
This is an institution which
understands education not as the utilitarian pursuit of skills, but
as a transformative process directed towards the building of the
common good of society here in Ireland and beyond. For the
fundamental Catholic value that underpins Mary Immaculate
College, and sets it apart in the third level sector in Ireland, is its
core understanding of the dignity of the human person called to
flourish in the world. Here we promote, unashamedly, this value
in the context of an academic community enshrined by academic
freedom.
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As has already been alluded to earlier behind every graduate
there are always other people to be found, dedicated mothers,
fathers, grandparents, spouses or partners, relatives or friends,
who have also been part of the journey that culminates in this
ceremony, from major sacrifice of financial support at the one
end to the kindly provision of advice in the bleaker times on the
other. On behalf of Mary Immaculate College and its graduates
let me express our gratitude to you – and you know who you are
– for your generosity, your strength and your trust in the years
that have led to this day and for the immense difference those
qualities have made to those who have graduated. I know you
too are proud today and I say, thank you! I invite our graduates
to join me in an expression of gratitude to these wonderful
people.
I now wish, on your behalf, to thank the Mary Immaculate
College staff members, from the academic faculties and the
professional service departments, who have worked with you
over these past years to help you arrive at this happy day. Their
dedication and expertise in this ‘school of learning’ has helped
transform you into the skilled, competent, aware individuals
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that you are today. While the focus of all our work here is our
students, it is our staff who are our greatest resource. We have
much to thank them for. Please join me in acknowledging their
professionalism and commitment.
I want to thank also, the University of Limerick which has
ratified your degrees and deemed your standard of achievement
suitable for admission to the ranks of its graduates. I thank, in
particular, the President of the University, Professor Don Barry,
and members of the University Governing Authority for their
presence with us at this conferring ceremony.
On behalf of the College I express our appreciation to all the
University staff who have assisted our graduates in their
passage through the College. I want to acknowledge and thank,
in particular, the Mace Bearer for the University of Limerick,
John O’Neill and to Mairead Hegarty, our sign language
interpreter today.
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Mary Immaculate College is not just a community of current
staff and students. It remembers its alumni, including you who
graduate today, and it looks forward to those who are to come!
We are a people with a shared memory, with a shared sense of
who we are now, and with a shared hope in the future that lies
gently in God’s hands. We will not forget you and we will do all
we can to keep you involved with us and that you remain part
of the life and experience of Mary I. Today you join in a band of
some 24,000 women and men who have graced this place and
graduated here since 1898. So stay in touch with us!
It is true that as graduates you enter into a world of economic
and
social
insecurity,
where
former
certainties
about
employment and identity can no longer be assumed. But be
certain of this, that your education and formation here will have
put you in good stead to meet these and other challenges, for
here you have been helped to play your role in creating a new
knowledge society, but even more importantly a just society.
Therefore, as you go from this place, where you have given and
received so much, a new task presents itself to you. In the words
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of the great German writer Goethe: ‘Knowing is not enough; we
must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do’.
And for now let me, on behalf of the College, wish you all the
best for your lives and careers, today and in the future, and, with
this rite of passage concluding, bid you God speed – Go dtuga
Dia gach rath agus beannacht daoibh ar bhur dturas saoil. Tá súil
agam go mbeidh lá deas agaibh. Beir bua agus beannacht.
Professor Michael A. Hayes,
President
23rd October 2015
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