A Polish hero

A hero among his own

The visit of Lech Walesa to Mayo was a source of great interest and pride among the hundreds of members of the Polish community here who came out to see him

MARCIN MIKOŁAJEWSKI

THE weekend before last former Polish President, Lech Walesa, with his wife Danuta, daughter and Polish ambassador Dr Tadeusz Szumkowski, visited the west Coast of Ireland – Co Mayo.
One of the first major meetings with the Polish community for the former Polish President was a holy Mass at Knock Shrine which happened on Saturday, July 7.
Before the Mass you could notice quite a big interest in the former Polish President. He gave out autographs and posed for pictures with the Polish and Irish communities.
Dr Michael Neary, the Archbishop of Tuam, led the ceremony, assisted by five other priests including one Polish priest, Krzysztof Sikora. The Mass was said in two languages, and this was not a problem for the two nationalities gathered at the cathedral to understand.
In Poland, Lech Walesa is known well from his sharp comments about other political groups and leaders. In Ireland, the former Polish President is known well as the strike co-ordinator of the naturally-accruing general strike in Poland in August 1980. Walesa was arrested in December 1981 and was interned for eleven months in south-eastern Poland, near the Soviet border, until November 1982.
The following year, 1983, saw Walesa being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to receive the prize himself, fearing that the Government would not let him back in. His wife, Danuta Wałesowa, received the prize in his place. Walesa donated the prize money to the Solidarity movement's temporary headquarters, exiled in Brussels.
As the first Polish person in history he became Man of the Year for Time magazine, he also received many other important awards like the title of ‘sir’ from Queen Elizabeth II and the same from the Swedish kingdom. After he left the presidential seat, which he held from 1995-2004, he also received 15 doctorate honours.
In 1989, Walesa organised and led the Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union. Formally, it was just an advisory body, but, practically, it was a kind of a political party, which won parliament elections in 1989 (the Opposition took all seats in the Sejm that were the subject of free elections and all but one seat in the newly re-established senate; according to the Round Table agreements only members of the Communist Party and its allies could stand for the remaining 64 per cent of seats in the Sejm). In 1989 he took part in making a non-communistic parliament for the first time in the history of Poland.
During the Mass, Archbishop Neary spoke of how the two nations have so much in common, particularly in terms of religion and history in both countries. He declared that both countries could benefit from each other’s cultures. He also underlined how important integration is for Polish people living on the island. Archbishop Neary said that Lech Walesa is like a Polish Michael Davitt because they both fought to get the same goals for the people who suffer for political reasons  in their countries.
The next phase of the Mass was about Pope John Paul II’s pilgrimage to Knock, which happened on the hundredth anniversary of the building of the cathedral. After that the former Polish President was awarded, from the Archbishop’s hand, the Silver Medal of Knock and then they went out of the cathedral and planted a tree in memory of John Paul II.
At the end the former Polish President thanked the Archbishop and the people who attended the Mass for the opportunity to pray in that cathedral. He said that he felt very pleased that he brought out the communist system from Poland ‘without a single shot’.
With certainty you could say that you were in the presence of very important company in Knock. There was no doubt that every single Polish and Irish person that was in Knock that day was very proud and honoured to have met the man whose actions led to the fall of communism in the middle of Eastern Europe, at the end of the twentieth century.