Building Bridges!

On Thursday 12^th March 2015 the Suir river crossing was named The Thomas Francis Meagher Bridge by President Michael D Higgins.

The naming of the bridge was an idea spawned a number of years ago from the 1848 Tricolour Celebration and the voluntary committee who organise the Celebration also reached a milestone this year with the organising of the 5^th annual Celebration that commemorates the first ever raising of the Irish Tricolour by Thomas Francis Meagher at 33 The Mall, Waterford City. The flag raising ceremony took place on The Mall, in Waterford City, on Sunday 8^th March and was attended by Minister Paudie Coffey, Mayor James Tobin, Mayor Lola O’Sullivan, Ambassador Vickers (Canadian Embassy), Ambassador Thebault (French Embassy), Lt Col Sean Cosden (US Embassy), 69^th Infantry Division (New York) and many other dignitaries. Approximately 1000 members of the public were also in attendance.

The annual Gala Dinner took place on Saturday 7^th March in The Granville Hotel and 110 guests attended the dinner where they were entertained by the Island of Ireland Peace Choir. The key note speech was presented by Col James Tierney and the subject topic was “Building Bridges” a very apt theme bearing in mind the bridge naming ceremony that took place on Thursday 12^th March.

The theme of “Building Bridges” has been fostered by the organising committee for the last five years and during those five years a considerable number of friends, family, Ambassadors, Governors and politicians from all sides of the political divide have attended the weekend events. There can be no doubt that the Celebration is now a recognised National Event and there are significant plans to make the 2016 Tricolour Celebration a very special event.

Organised by a voluntary committee who annually manage to attract high level delegations from the United States and in particular the 69^th Infantry Division (New York), also known as the “Fighting 69^th”. The 69^th Division have annually send at least five serving members and during Col James Tierney’s speech he explained the impact the organising committee and the people of Waterford have had on the members of the 69^th Infantry Division.

Col James Tierney spoke about the fact the Tricolour Celebration committee had without doubt helped the Infantry Division reconnect with its Irish heritage and therefore reconnect with so many of the Divisions past traditions. The reaching out of the Committee to connect with the 69^th has in so many ways been beneficial to both side of the pond.

In 2014 a delegation from the Waterford branch of Irish Naval Reserve and a number of Committee members self-funded a trip to New York to march in the St.Patrick’s Day Parade and I was lucky enough to be part of that delegation who, to a man and a woman, represented Waterford City with pride, dignity and passion.

It was only when I returned home did I realise the significance of what we had just experienced. Through the friendship we have built up with the 69^th we literally marched at the head of the parade and we marched in front of all the senior politicians, mayors and other dignitaries. We were without doubt being treated as guests of honour.

I should really have noted just how big a role we would play in the Parade when we attended St.Patricks Cathedral, just off 5^th Avenue, for mass early on the morning of the 17^th March 2014. We were seated with the members of the 69^th four and five rows from the front, just behind the An Taoiseach, the Mayor of New York and other political figures. We would then play in integral role in the Parade itself. And after a long march up the length of 5^th Avenue we and the members of the 69^th got on our very own private subway train and we thundered back to the barracks with green lights all the way – now that is a very impressive level of “pull”.  

I have to say that 17^th March 2014 will also be remembered as one of the coldest days I have every had to wear my kilt on and almost one year later I am still waiting for some bits and bobs to come back down.

Away from the formal involvement of the Parade we received unprecedented access to the 9/11 Memorial Site to lay a wreath, on behalf of the people of Waterford City. The wreath was laid with a naval honour guard of the men and women from the Waterford branch of the Naval Reserve and hundreds of visitors to the site also participated in the wreath laying ceremony. Access was also given to the United Nations building and the tour we received took us to every debating chamber and to all the areas you would occasionally see on the national news channels. We really were being given the full VIP treatment.

Our trip to New York in 2014 has certainly left me with wonderful memories and also built bridges of friendship across the Atlantic Ocean.

The naming of the Thomas Francis Meagher Bridge really has been a huge team effort on behalf of Waterford and Kilkenny and in many ways the significance of these two sporting rivals working together on the bridge naming cannot be lost.

As a region we do need to work more cohesively and work more closely. The South East has a population of circa 500,000 and yet we are still under achieving in terms of employment, third level attainment, international tourism etc etc. And perhaps the bridge naming will be that start of many other coordinated projects and programmes that will benefit Waterford City, the County and the wider region. By pulling together we can accelerate the development of the City and the wider region.

But to do this we will have to build bridges and we will have to compromise.

We need to position Waterford City as the economic driver for the whole of the South East and that will mean finding the right people to drive the right projects that will position the City as a place of investment. To do just that we will have to work with people and partners that perhaps we feel we should not even be talking to. But failure to find a common ground will be far more disruptive than taking no action at all.

 

We have to be mature enough to start “Building Bridges” and we have to look at which voluntary groups are getting it right and how we can learn from and foster their success.

Maybe more people should be looking to the voluntary group called the 1848 Tricolour Celebration as there can be no doubt they have a successful formula and they are flying the flag Internationally for Waterford City and the wider region.