Taoiseach: Irish Paralympians 'a great source of pride'

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is extending his best wishes to Team Ireland ahead of the start 2012 Paralympic Games.

The opening ceremony for the 12-day event takes place at the Olympic Stadium in London this evening.

Mr Kenny said the team's achievements in recent years have been "a great source of pride and inspiration".

Ireland enters the Games with five reigning World Champions and two defending Paralympic Champions.

Apples, professor Stephen Hawking, Ian McKellen and a girl called Miranda are to be at the centre of tonight’s opening ceremony.

The XIV Paralympics are set to open with a spectacular extravaganza in Stratford as London 2012 resumes following a two-week hiatus with a play focused on humanity and science titled ’The Enlightenment’.

Using Hawking’s work on A Brief History of Time, co-artistic directors Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings looked to the 18th century and the Enlightenment for inspiration.

Hawking guides Miranda, from The Tempest, through the show, alongside Prospero, another character from the Shakespeare play in a role filled by McKellen.

Sealey said: “It’s when intellectual, philosophical, cultural and social movement took hold and the amount of knowledge that was acquired and disseminated really started to challenge and test things to create the world in which we now live.

“The Paralympics are absolutely fundamental to that vision of enlightenment - transforming perception, the Paralympics do that.

“Tonight you will be taken on the most exquisite journey of discovery, inspired by the wonder of science. It is about changing perception and it is Stephen Hawking who guides us.”

Audience participation is encouraged, with spectators to be given apples on arrival at the Olympic Stadium ahead of a Sir Isaac Newton-inspired scene.

“We want to stage the biggest ever apple bite,” Sealey added.

Hawking is set to begin the ceremony ahead of the ’Parallel’ Games, where 4,280 athletes from 166 nations are to compete across 20 sports for 503 gold medals across 11 days of competition.

Hemmings said: “Stephen Hawking makes the point that even if we understood all the mechanics of the universe, it would still just be a series of numbers and equations. He poses the questions: what is it that breathes life into those equations? What is it that makes it a universe worth describing?

“And, of course, that’s humanity. That’s what the show is profoundly about - it’s about science and humanity.

“We stage, after Stephen’s words, this extraordinary big bang.”

As at the Olympics, The Tempest also provided inspiration for today’s ceremony, particularly the line from act five: “O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”

It is an attitude Sealey and Hemmings hope to engender in their audience and that the Paralympics can also encourage to grow.

Sealey added: “That is fundamental to our personal and political ethos. To look without judging. It is about removing those attitudinal barriers.

“Both Hawking and McKellen in their narrative talk about what we all need to remember; don’t just look down at your feet, look at the stars, be curious.”

The showpiece will close with Beverley Knight signing I Am What I Am and observers encouraged to sign and sing along with the music.

London 2012 creative director Stephen Daldry said: “This is about challenging perceptions, challenging about who we are.”