Mallow summer school to honour the legacy of the late Tip O’Neill
‘WE BELIEVE WE HAVE SET IN MOTION A PROCESS THAT WILL BRING COMMUNITIES TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD’
THE memory the celebrated former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, ‘ Tip’ O’Neill, is to be enshrined in a high-profile event staged in his ancestral home of Mallow.
The inaugural Tip O’Neill International Summer School was to have been held in Mallow this month. However, it has now been re-scheduled for next summer as a result of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president of the Summer School organising committee, Mallow native Michael O’Neill, who is a relative of Tip O’Neill, said the principal aim of the initiative was to “further strengthen the Irish links between the US and Europe”.
“The school will set out to define itself as an evolving bridge that will span Ireland’s historic connections with Europe and subsequent links with the US”, said Mr O’Neill.
“Through the global Irish diaspora network, it will seek out and explore avenues to be a progressive and active medium of re-connecting the USA with its Irish and European roots,” he added.
It was Tip O’Neill who once famously said that “all politics is local”, something that Michael O’Neill said would be a key element of the Summers School’s guiding ethos.
“Building relations between nations must also have their foundations in local communities and the need for these communities from different nations to interact and understand one another,” said Mr O’Neill.
He said the long-term goal will be to make the Mallow event Munster’s “premier summer school”.
“It will be a bridge of people, ideas and reflections. It will not just be an annual weekend event, but an ongoing active process of engagement in all facets of social, cultural, economic and political life, facilitating interaction between people from Ireland, Europe and the USA,” said Mr O’Neill.
“The Summer School will aim to imbue the life and times of Tip O’Neill – his many achievements as an elected representative, his quest for equality and fairness and last, but not least, his and other Irish Americans commitment and contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland and the maintenance of good relations between Ireland and the United States,” he added.
The school will lay its initial foundations by drawing its speakers from a pool of academia and experts from Mallow and North Cork, with a view to engaging national and internationally renowned speakers as it evolves in the future.
It is also proposed that it be held in tandem with a junior Summer School, which will invite senior-cycle pupils from local schools to form a North Cork Youth Forum that will set the agenda for discussion each year.
Given Tip O’Neill’s Donegal ancestral links, it is envisaged that pupils from schools in the Inishowen Peninsula will also be invited to participate in the junior Summer School.
Mr O’Neill said that the inaugural Tip O’Neill Summer School would take place over a weekend between July and September of next year, with the actual date to be finalised following an international consultation process.
“A lot of hard work has gone into bringing this initiative from the kernel of an idea through to fruition, and it was with a great sense of disappointment that we had to cancel the inaugural Summer School this year,” said Mr O’Neill.
“However, we believe we have set in motion a process that will be an incredible force for good in helping to being together communities in Ireland and the US to work for the common good for many years to come,” he added.
To find out more about the Tip O’Neill International Summer School, one can get in contact with Michael O’Neill on (086) 376 2212.