McAleese slams use of Irish flag to intimidate

Former Irish president Dr Mary McAleese during a interview at an event marking the 50th anniversary of The Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Former president Mary McAleese has criticised the use of the Irish flag to intimidate and compared it with the experiences of some Irish people who emigrated to the US and Britain.

The president spoke about a variety of topics including artificial intelligence (AI), the “manosphere”, Irish neutrality and Brexit, the latter of which she called “the triumph of stupidity”.

She also advised activists to “never just say a thing once”, praised young scholars who pushed for the renaming of Berkeley Library, and said the “pull of the malign is so strong” in the world.

Dr McAleese was interviewed by human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher at an event at Trinity College Dublin marking 50 years of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL).

She said that when she arrived at Trinity to teach as a professor of criminal law, she joined as a member of the ICCL.

She said the world “is not the way I would like it to be” and said she had hoped that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN were structures capable of “transcending the gravitational pull of stupidity”, conflict and war, which she said was “the default the position of humanity” for centuries.

She called the EU an “extravagantly wonderful, miraculous idea” while also being “imperfect”.

“We’re also in a culture of ridiculous complaint about every darn thing, but even particularly about those agencies and organisations that were pulled together like really fragile threads, pulled together in tiny, tiny little bows that were designed to give us a new generation of hope and heart and faith and a future based on partnership and peace.” 

She was asked about incidents of racism in Ireland, and said that while this country is “fortunate” with its political leadership, racism is being “promoted by people in serious leadership positions” in the world.

“The language of racism, the language of misogyny, the language of rich is good and the poor is bad has just taken hold, social media helps it to course and gives it such spread.

“Now, because it is said by people in eminent positions, racism is on an agenda, misogyny is on an agenda, which seems to me now a cause for organisations like this – we’ve got to stand doubly strong.

“To be honest, I don’t think this is going anywhere but bad, that’s the truth.” 

She compared people who use the Irish flag to intimidate and say “Ireland for the Irish”, to the “no Irish need apply” signs in Britain and the US.

“Do they know nothing about our history as immigrants? Do they know nothing about the impact of immigration-based racism on our people, have they no conscious about that?

“I never thought I’d live to see that day in Ireland, where the Irish flag would be used by people like that, but it is all the more reason to say you will not colonise our thinking, you will not colonise our flag.

“Other people tried in the past to do it for really malignant reasons that were visited upon us as Irish people but we will not let that happen to those who have made their lives among us.” 

Dr McAleese was the first Irish president from Northern Ireland, and served two terms from 1997 to 2011.

She experienced first-hand the violence of the Troubles and would later go on to play a role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

She trained as a barrister and journalist at RTÉ, and also completed a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with the thesis to be converted into two books on children’s rights.

Since 2013, she has taught courses in various higher educational institutions on topics including children rights, LGBT rights in international law, conflict resolution and the Irish peace process.