The Rev. Alan Martin of the Abbey Presbyterian Church, Dublin, a Former Chairman of the Glencree Council and the Rev
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The first ten years GLENCREE CENTRE FOR RECONCILIATION The first ten years A grant from the Allied Irish Banks Group Community and Social Programme towards this publication is acknowledged with thanks. Glcncrec... a place and an ideal lencree Centre for Reconciliation was G founded in 1974 as a response to violent conflict in Irish society, in the conviction that there must be a better way than violence and vandalism, intolerance and sectarianism. The Centre works to discover and promote the conditions for a just and peaceful society. It seeks to uncover and encourage in the people of Ireland the moral and physical resources to transcend the politics and economics of violence, pollution and greed and to reconstruct an island where young and old can live in security and hope. A spirit of Christian commitment to this ideal inspired the foundation of the Centre and continues to motivate its varied activities of peace training, peace making and the respectful use of natural resources. It welcomes members and fellow workers from any religious faith and from none, from Ireland and abroad and from all social and political traditions compatible with the aims of the Centre. Glencree is a place and an ideal. It stands for tolerance and justice; for an Ireland where individuals and families, small groups and large, can find the space and the environment to live and work together with dignity and mutual respect • What the Taoiseach has said HE work of reconciliation is Tthe greatest single challenge that faces this generation in Ireland. As each of the last ten years has gone by, the task has become more daunting, more complex and more heartbreaking. ... Too many young Irish men and women have sought relief in escapism or have yielded to a blind urge for violent revenge. Too many of my own generation have yielded to a weary fatalism. “If we fail to confront the crisis of Northern Ireland, it will inexorably worsen and fester. “Until we all seek to understand this crisis, we will not be able to act intelligently and effectively for peace. The effort of understanding will require a willingness on our part, on the part of both sections of the community in Northern Ireland and on the part of the British to reject a good deal of our own cherished mythology as well as the mythology of others. It will require a readiness to contemplate difficult, expensive and probably painful options and it will require a commitment to give to this problem and to its solution a priority above all other issues.” From aspeech by the Taoiseach, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, T.D. at the opening of a Glencree exhibition in May 1983. Glencree - a beacon of hope Dr. A. J. F. O'Reilly, Chairman of the Glencree Development Committee sends us this message on our tenth anniversary. OM M ENTING on the synonym for surrender - or if it CAnglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 does mean surrender, it is and partition, a British author surrender of a positive type to wrote, “So the Irish won in a the forces of general good. way, but they lost too, for they Glencree is all about creating never made friends with space .. space for the mind, themselves.” space for the spirit, space for the That observation was penned soul. It is a crossroads for tribes many years ago, but it is as true to meet. Properly used, it is a today as it was fifty years ago. supermarket for low-cost Glencree is one of those little generosity and high-quality beacons of hope that light up an Christianity. otherwise turbulent, Stop and shop at Glencree! ungenerous sea. You’ll find the Christian We have to learn the message of peace alive and well American lesson that and prospering there, thanks to compromise is the distinction of your generosity. • the intelligent man and not a Ten Years... “Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for afresh start and a new beginning — Martin Luther King FTER a particularly horrifying community leaders, politicians and A outbreak of bombing in Belfast in trade unionists of all persuasions have 1972 a number of people met in Dublin taken part in seminars and to protest against the atrocities being conferences. carried out in their name and an All this activity and the practical ecumenical service to voice concern effort entailed must surely have some for the people of Northern Ireland was stronger motive force if the ideals and later held in Christ Church Cathedral. aspirations of Glencree are to reach Concern was not enough, however out and influence the hearts and minds and the organisation known as of those to whom the concept of Working For Peace considered reconciliation is as yet unknown - or injustice and social problems to be at even unacceptable. the root of the conflict. The various There is of course this motive force peace groups involved soon realised and it springs from the Christian belief that reconciliation was the key and which permeates everything to do with that what was needed was a common the Centre and which was what fired base from which to spearhead an the enthusiasm of the founders over effective and non-violent approach to ten years ago. the urgent issues both north and south. ROM its earliest days Glencree has In February of the following year the been inspired by and affiliated to old Glencree barracks were made FCorrymeela, the Christian peace available by the Government and in a community in Co. Antrim which is generous act of faith, bankers twenty years old this year. Joint Guinness and Mahon approved an projects with Corrymeela are an overdraft of £47,000 for the work of ongoing feature of our co-operation. renovation to be undertaken. There is also an affiliation with the May 1975 saw the opening of the Cross of Nails Community, a special Glencree Centre for Reconciliation honour for an organisation so young as which has been the scene of important Glencree. Other Cross of Nails events and projects during the ensuing centres are in the United States, decade. They are too numerous to Dresden, Berlin, Taize and detail here, but they have been wide- Corrymeela. ranging in their scope, including the See what is meant by the stronger fields of education, recreation, fund motive force and the Christian raising, work camps and holidays and inspiration? hosting the flow of visitors to the Glencree since 1974 has initiated an Centre in the beautiful and peaceful annual Peace Week during which there valley of Glencree has been rewarding are lectures, seminars, exhibitions and for all concerned. street drama and always an ecumenical service. Distinguished HE work goes on. There is a preachers over the years have continuous programme of North- included the Rev. Michael Quoist from TSouth exchange, peace studies and France and Bishop Helder Camara of conflict resolution courses for Brazil. secondary schools, farm education for During the last ten years there have primary schools and inner city children been many seminars and the extent of and local and international work- the concept of peace and camps. reconciliation can be gauged by the Hundreds of families from troubled variety of subjects covered. These areas in the North have come to range from political (Irish neutrality, Glencree for holidays or shelter and the politics of forgiveness and U.D.l. for Northern Ireland), economic as their submission to the New Ireland (unemployment and renewable Forum which used it extensively as a energy), religious (minority religions), source of reference. social (pluralism, sexism in education From a valley in the Wicklow Hills and prison sentences). where peace is being nurtured flows hope into a world of strife. In M O N G the more significant of apparently small ways and practical L recent conferences was that held day-to-day human contact and in the Ajointly with Corrymeela in Queen’s broad sweep of idealogical influence, University, Belfast. Political scientists, things are being made to happen. historians and other experts came Elsewhere in this booklet we tell you from Europe and the United States to what is happening in Glencree now give their views on alternative models and how the work will grow and of political co-operation and their develop with your help and the kind of papers were afterwards published in vision that started off the whole book form. The book was glorious cycle of peace and subsequently presented by Glencree reconciliation in our time. • The old barracks building in the Centre under renovation by volunteers during the first ten years. The Glencree Centre and Christianity The Rev. Alan Martin of the Abbey Presbyterian Church, Dublin, a former Chairman of the Glencree Council and the Rev. Denis Green s.m. of Mount Saint Mary’s, Dublin, a Glencree Council member, reaffirm the Christian presence at Glencree. For Christians the Centre is an ecumenical effort to bridge divisions, they say. It is also a place to work with men and women whose faith or church membership is not explicit, or who have no religious faith or church. HE Glencree Centre for see the conflict as a judgment TReconciliation is not a we have brought on ourselves church-affiliated community, but by worshipping the false god of Christian motivation was strong sectarian interests and the among the founders and finds a Catholic/Protestant divide is place in the latest statement of used by some to underpin and identity. justify these interests. In the course of history the Church has been involved in violence or has become petrified “He is the peace in its organisation or expression between us.” of faith.