PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins has warned that lasting peace can only be found if former enemies respect each other’s “common humanity”.
President Higgins made his comments in a keynote address to the American Conference of Irish Studies in Derry commemorating the 1,500th anniversary of the birth of St Columba.
At the “Heritage, Home and Healing” conference at Ulster University’s Magee campus last night, President Higgins said “memory and remembrance” could be used to build foundations for a shared and agreed Ireland.
People must have the courage to listen to difficult, uncomfortable and painful facts from the past if meaningful healing is to be achieved for the future, President Higgins said.
“Lasting peace will only be embedded to achieve its best harvest when we each have the generosity and the empathy to recognise that we must see as our materials the common humanity of the other, including that of former enemies, to whom we accord respect of so much more than tolerance, to their differing perspectives and narratives.”
President Higgins said it was essential that a “space for forgiveness” be created so that healing could take place on the shared island of Ireland.
“By adopting such an approach, we may nurture memory and remembrance and use them as strong foundations for a shared, agreed future on what is our mutual home – this island of Ireland where the healing has to commence and endure. Whether it is that we dwell in it, recall it, care for it or imagine it, that is our shared challenge,” he said.
The president focused his keynote address on the work of St Columba and the evolution of Derry and the north west from the Columban era to “honoured heroes” such as Seamus Heaney, John Hume, Brian Friel, Seamus Deane and others.
He also paid particular tribute to Pat Hume for her own role and the role she played with her late husband in the Northern Ireland peace process.
