“As iar-Uachtarán, I formally declare Enda McDonagh a national spiritual treasure of Ireland.”These words of former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, were greeted with sustained applause and broad smiles on Saturday last, as she paid tribute to Professor McDonagh on the occasion of the official opening – which she performed – of the library he donated to the Castlebar campus of GMIT.
Imagination, hope and community response CONFERENCE Denise Horan A GREATER convergence of imagination and reason is needed in formulating a new ethical approach in the Ireland of today, Professor Enda McDonagh told those gathered in the Castlebar campus of GMIT on Saturday last.
One of seven speakers at the day-long conference, which considered a new vision for Ireland from economic, ethical and cultural perspectives, Professor McDonagh – retired Professor of Moral Theology in Maynooth and a theologian of international standing – said that reason and imagination were seldom distinguished and the need for both rarely recognised in relation to ethics.
“Imagination allows us to understand and respond to people that bit better and more ethically and that is necessary in this new vision we are looking for to deal with the crisis we now find ourselves in,” he said.
A combination of reasonable evaluation and imagination allowed for the inclusion of all people, he said. “Inclusivity is only possible if we have that ability to let our worlds become their [people on the margins] worlds; otherwise we don’t include them. Everybody has basic human rights in the inclusive world.”
Acknowledging that there was never a civilisation where ethical problems did not exist, the Bekan native said that in today’s ‘global world we need to attend more imaginatively to these dimensions’. People flourishing together in community must be the goal of all moral and ethical striving, he said, but this had not always been recognised in Ireland – a lack of imagination, coupled with other hindrances, leading to this.
“Implicit in all our ethical and moral reflection is the intertwining of reason and imagination, something to which we have not always adverted, but to which we might now advert in dealing with this crisis. The ethical tradition in Ireland was always confused with religion, and religion obscured the moral or the ethical,” he suggested.
Condemning the ‘reductionist’ view of Ireland as an economy – one of the serious failures of imagination – he said that we tolerated and accepted what was happening (during the so-called Celtic Tiger years) because we were getting more money. Now it was necessary for us to understand that corrupt world in order for us to respond to it, he said, pointing out that such a world was not necessarily inhabited solely by corrupt people.
Professor McDonagh said he could not comprehend how no one had yet been charged with, never mind jailed for, the corruption that had taken place in our financial system, and yet people like Maura Harrington and the Rossport Five were jailed. “This seems like extraordinary double standards. I don’t think jail is necessarily a good place for anyone, but we must have some kind of equitable response,” he said.
Addressing the theme of ‘Irish Society: New Vision and Values’, Dr Pauline Logue, a lecturer in Theology, Ethics and Education at GMIT, gave a wonderful and engaging presentation on communitarian ethics, based primarily on her experience in inner-city Dublin. Dr Logue, a native of Donegal, lived and worked in the Fatima Mansions estate in Dublin from 1995 to 2002, where she set up an education and training project, the Children and Education Project.
In her address, which explored the findings of her PhD thesis, she considered the values and moral practices of those who lived in Fatima Mansions, and how they found their own community solutions to the massive problems they faced, not least that of drugs.
Achill poet, John F Deane, explored the theme ‘Reflections on Irish Culture and the Arts’, and called for the need for ‘a vibrant arts community to act as a regulator’ in preventing power and materialism becoming too consuming in society. Remarking that the arts have no function or duty, other than to themselves, he said however, that: “The effect of great art is to lead the mind in a direction beyond materialism.”
Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at Maynooth, Professor Patrick Hannon, gave his reflections on ‘The Ethical Contribution of Rev Professor Enda McDonagh’. Professor Hannon said that Professor McDonagh was not trapped by the intellectual tradition, instead he drew it out and expanded on it in his work. His work was underpinned by faith and hope, but, above all, by love, said his former student.
“We are all indebted to him in a whole lot of ways that he doesn’t even know, and I’m glad to be able to thank him,” said Professor Hannon.
Earlier contributors included Professor PJ Drudy on the subject of ‘Regional Development: Towards a New Vision’; Dr Deirdre Garvey of GMIT, who addressed the topic ‘New Horizons: Internationalisation’, and Eithne FitzGerald (on behalf of her husband John FitzGerald) on the theme ‘The Banking/Credit Crisis and Strategies for Economic Recovery’.
A place of peace and vision in honour of Ireland’s ‘spiritual treasure’ LIBRARY OPENING Denise Horan “As iar-Uachtarán, I formally declare Enda McDonagh a national spiritual treasure of Ireland.”
These words of former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, were greeted with sustained applause and broad smiles on Saturday last, as she paid tribute to Professor McDonagh (pictured) on the occasion of the official opening – which she performed – of the library he donated to the Castlebar campus of GMIT.
Remarking on her great admiration for, and friendship, with Professor McDonagh – who was official chaplain to Áras an Uachtaráin during her term as President – Mrs Robinson noted that he was also admired and loved by those on the margins. She said that ‘Enda’s vision has always been ahead of where we were going’. “His is not an assertive style; he doesn’t say ‘we must’. Rather it is a gentle nagging style,” she said of his work as a theologian.
Speaking of his generous donation of his vast personal library to GMIT, she said: “I hope this will be a place of peace, happiness, dreams of a new Ireland; a place of rest and of vision itself.”
Responding, Professor McDonagh thanked everyone for attending the conference and library opening, particularly Mary Robinson, who ‘has been a major influence in my life since first ringing me in Maynooth in the 1960s’.
He said the person who guided him in his book-buying in his early years in Dublin was Castlebar man, Tommy Waldron. Parson’s Bookshop on Baggot Street was the bookshop of choice, he recalled, and a lady who worked there called Ms King was a recognised authority on all that was contained in the shop.
Ms Marion Coy, President of GMIT, thanked Professor McDonagh for his generosity in giving his personal library to the college. “We share a communal interest, and a worry, with the things that troubled Enda. This library is him holding out his hand to you to consider his interests and what inspired him when he read a particular book. It is a hand held out to us and a mind that speaks to us.
“You are never alone; that is what libraries are about,” she said.
A special presentation of a hand-crafted maple jewellery box, made by David Burke, a native of Scardaune, Claremorris, and a first year student of the Letterfrack campus of GMIT, was made to Mrs Robinson to mark the occasion.
The library was officially opened by Mary Robinson, having earlier been blessed by the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, and the Right Reverend Richard Henderson, Church of Ireland Bishop of the united dioceses of Tuam, Killala and Achonry.
