It is a great pleasure to be with you all at the Excel Arts and Cultural Centre for this very special occasion. As I look around me I can see that Excel lives up to its title and is fulfilling its promise as a real asset to the community. Back in 1998 when the decision whether it would be built hung in the balance, I was glad to have tipped the scales in favour of a positive decision.
Mary Alice O 'Connor greeted me on the day when the centre first opened its doors six years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed the occasion because I believed that Excel had a unique vision. In the intervening years, it has brought new impetus to the arts and engendered community spirit and participation in them through the many projects you have embarked on. Excel is a model which other towns can learn a great deal from and I thank you for bringing the arts into the heart of community life.
I would like to congratulate the Chairman of the Board, Councilor Michael Maguire and his colleagues, including the General Manager Mary Sarsfield for steering the Centre safely through difficult financial waters until more help arrived in December 2005 with a €1.56 million grant from my colleague, the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, T.D.
The latest cultural highlight to come here is the Lady Clementina Maude Photographic Exhibition. Though she was Scottish-born, Lady Clementina enjoyed her visits to the well-known Dundrum Estate. Her affinity with local people developed largely out of her empathy with their suffering in Famine times. She has earned a special place in the history of this community. It makes this collection all the more meaningful and welcome for Tipperary people, particularly as not all the memories associated with the Maude Family in earlier times are happy ones.
Her vast collection of photographs from the mid-19th Century will shed new light on what might otherwise have been a much forgotten past. Accordingly, the photos are a very important part of the heritage of South Tipperary. They offer exciting new perspectives and insights on the social scene - in particular on the lives of the gentry and those who worked in the big houses of Ireland when the landed estates were the centre of the rural economy. Taken as a collection, they help to complete the jigsaw of local 19th Century history, left somewhat unfinished by a mainly written and oral record.
Photography is perhaps the most significant development to come on stream in the arts since Louis Daguerre created the first reliable photographic process in 1839. Lady Clementina Maude lived through a time when photography, while by no means a new concept, was in practice, very much in its infancy. The practical application of the new art was still a new marvel that had scarcely made it even to the leisured classes. And like all inventions, its proponents had to struggle to give it its rightful place in the arts.
Today, a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum with its vast displays of world-class photography shows the degree to which it has been embraced as an inherent part of the arts in the modern world.
Lady Clementina Maude's achievements should be a source of local pride. But her renown as a photographer has also earned her a place in the history of photography itself. In modern times and outside of the county, her name is most closely associated with the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her vast collection of work shows her to be a woman well ahead of her time and reminds us how early photography revolutionised the way we recorded events for pleasure and posterity. Today, she is remembered as a prolific photographer, one that has influenced the practice of even contemporary artistes.
In this digital age, photography continues to take strides. Like the more traditional arts, it will continue to evolve and we can count on it to provide refreshing new perspectives. That is the glory of photography. Today, it holds a proud place in the history of the arts and I am glad to be here to celebrate its special place in Tipperary's past. Dundrum House today is a thriving hotel and leisure complex, thanks to the enterprise of Austin Crowe. It combines the splendour of the past with all the comforts of modernity. No doubt, they will consider the possibility of putting up a sample of her work there.
The Excel Centre has worked in partnership with the South Tipperary County Museum to bring this exhibition back to the locality. This is only the beginning. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, more communities will have the opportunity to view the collection as it tours the region.
I thank you all for your interest and commitment to the arts. I have stated many times before my view that it is the fundamental right of all citizens to be able to access and participate in the arts. To deny people their cultural expression is to deny them a key part of their existence and identity.
In particular, I thank the team at Excel, South Tipperary Co. Council, Senator Martin Mansergh, Dr. Des Marnane, Nina Appleby and Fitzpatrick Printers who have supported and facilitated this important exhibition and who have done so much for Excel and the arts as a whole. You deserve every success with this exhibition.
Thank you.
ENDS.