Pupils warm to Cox's tales of idealism from Brussels front

ON THE CANVASS WITH PAT COX:Heartfelt speech about the EU is matched by the intelligence of the questions that follow

THE RELIEF. The sole link to Lisbon in the posters at St Patrick’s Classical School is the word “vote”: “A Vote for homework is a Vote for your Future”. Suddenly a post-Lisbon landscape is imaginable, where the young can re-engage with an adult world free of snarling, lying, plotting and prevarication.

But with a few days still to go, nowhere is safe. Colm O’Rourke, the legendary Meath footballer, happens to be the principal of the 850-pupil school in Navan, and is making no apology for setting the “Ireland for Europe” forces loose on the students, when requested by Peter Cassells. “When I see the cranks, socialists and UKIPs . . .”

Anyway, he did his bit for balance last week by hosting a debate in the school between local TD Damien English and Sinn Féin councillor Peadar Toibin, a former student.

Either way, Pat Cox is unlikely to unleash the forces of anarchy. And let no one question his integrity or commitment. He has slept only five nights in his own bed and taken two days off since the launch of Ireland for Europe’s campaign on June 21st.

They have battled through a worrying summer where the campaign was haemorrhaging money. Only in recent weeks has the cash begun to flow again, with €300,000 flooding in over the past three weeks alone. So all is as well as it can be in a nervous camp. The only worry is whether his earnest style might trigger a bout of anarchy among the Meath lads lined up to listen to him.

At the off, he admits it’s the first talk he has given in a school and is anxious not to get bogged down in any “heavy” political message. So he will begin, he says, with a couple of “stories”.

We cringe in anticipation of a Cox-style Fr Trendy. Instead, without notes, he talks compellingly and simply for 30 minutes about what Europe means at its spiritual heart, beginning with his election to the European Parliament in 1989, when it still contained some members of an older generation who had been “deeply touched” by the second World War.

He mentions a woman MEP, born in Nice to a happy family, with brothers and sisters – and “they were Jews”. Without drama, he describes how the entire family was rounded up and first taken to Paris, then to Auschwitz, from which only two sisters survived. One of the sisters, Simone Veil, became the first president of the new European Parliament – “and I am pleased to number her among my friends”.

He then describes another member, Martin Holzfuss, who as a boy wanted nothing more than to follow his brother into the German army. So though he hadn’t the slightest interest in politics, “he joined a thing called the Hitler Youth. He joined the army at 16 and was assigned to the Eastern Front, the most brutal set of battlefields”.

Cox explained how he and Holzfuss were able to communicate because as a gesture of resistance to the French who took him captive, Holzfuss refused to take French lessons but chose to learn English.

Cox used these two individuals to illustrate how “two adults with every reason to detest each other” came to work together within the European project “for a common ideal”. “So when I think about Europe,” he said, “I don’t think about faceless bureaucrats trying to do nasty things to us, I think about ideals.”

With 60 rapt young faces before him, he did not shy away from the questions of conscription or militarism, explaining in some detail the 27 “common missions” undertaken by EU member states, how 19 of them were civilian involving humanitarian aid or gardaí or judges helping to establish policing rules in Yugoslavia and independent courts and how Irish troops helped to set up field hospitals in Chad using satellite technology.

“This is the actual Europe . . . a decent place with great values, with a decent concern for its neighbours. This is something we don’t need to fear, but something we should embrace and celebrate. October 2nd is for our small nation a date with destiny. We are a free people. We can vote yes or no – but each choice has a consequence and it will mark your generation more than it will mark mine.”

The time allowed for questions was distinguished by the intelligence of those asking them. There was no confusion with non-Lisbon issues. How many more potential accession states? What if Ireland rejected the treaty? What about the minimum wage threatened by the posters? Would there be a common immigration policy? Why do we have to vote again? Was it true our voting weight would be diminished? Cox answered them all concisely and satisfactorily.

Afterwards, Akhlaque Khan (16) said if he had a vote, he would have been a No but that now he fully understood the advantages. For Daire Dalton, it had amounted to an exposé of the poster claims. Darragh Maguire found it all very satisfying since he was already well aware that many of the No vote claims were based on “tabloid propaganda”. Andrew Gavin (18) could “only see the benefits of a Yes”.

As Cox ended his session, they were wide awake and looked ready for more. “In your own life”, he says, “you set most of the boundaries yourself. If you come from a small state and think small, you are small. There is nothing to fear except fear itself.”