Humbert Summer School: Davitt Awards were presented last night to former SDLP leader and Nobel laureate John Hume, former taoiseach Albert Reynolds and current Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
The awards were presented by John Cooney on behalf of the Humbert School at the Newman Institute, Ballina.
The awards were in recognition of efforts by the three men and their parties to bring peace to this island and of the role democratic politics had played in promoting the peace process, as well as the work for reconciliation in Northern Ireland, Mr Cooney said. The awards represented an endorsement of Davitt's repudiation of the physical-force tradition in Irish politics in favour of democratic means, he added.
Mr Hume said he was honoured to receive the award for its its implicit recognition of the contribution by the three political parties represented by the recipients. He pointed out that the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, concluded by Garret FitzGerald and Margaret Thatcher, established a role for the Irish government in Northern Ireland affairs for the first time and had been the beginning of the peace process.
The 1992 Downing Street Declaration, concluded by Albert Reynolds and John Major (following the Hume-Adams talks), was the next major step, and then there was the 1998 Belfast Agreement, endorsed by the people of Ireland, North and South.
Mr Reynolds said it was an honour to receive the award and to know he was "still thought about". He continued: "I did what I did for the peace process and for Ireland and was delighted to do it." It was, he said, "great to be around to see how Ireland has come on. People said I was mad when I told them . . . that I had two aims: peace in Ireland and to grow the economy to reverse emigration."
Mr Kenny also expressed his gratitude on receiving the award. He described Michael Davitt as a "figure of gargantuan historic proportions" and as a symbol of the transition from physical force to democratic politics. He had brought people into politics and had called for a debate on the sort of Ireland people wanted. He had expressed particular concern at the early sexualisation of children and said that was a debate this country needed to have. Another issue which should be addressed was depressive illness, the second most prevalent illness in the world. There was also our tendency "to drink ourselves to oblivion".
The main speaker at the school last night was Bernard O'Hara, author of the recently-published book Davitt. He described the Land League founder as "one of the greatest patriots, if not the greatest, to grace the pages of Irish history".