February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“There are legal questions to be asked, there are moral questions to be asked, there’s that big why to be asked,” McAleese said to reporters in Springfield where she delivered the commencement address at Mount Holyoke College on Sunday.
The Irish Times reported McAleese as calling for a massive public debate into the contents and consequences of the Ryan report into the abuse of children at institutions run jointly by the Irish state and 18 religious orders.
“Some people seem to think the Ryan report was designed to bring closure. I don’t know where they got that idea from. The opposite is the case. This report is about opening up that which had been criminally closed, outrageously closed, furtively and secretly closed. It’s about opening it up,” said McAleese.
The publication of the report, its horrific contents and the shock wave of Irish public reaction, followed McAleese across the Atlantic and as the president crisscrossed the Bay State on a mission aimed at firming up already close ties between Ireland and a state that is more Irish in its demographic makeup than most.
Hosted in the western part of the state by Congressman Richard Neal, chairman of the Friends of Ireland, McAleese delivered the commencement address at Mount Holyoke College.
While focusing on women’s rights and the role of women in society, McAleese also cited the peace process in Northern Ireland as an example of men and women combining to break the “stranglehold of history.
“We were blessed in our friends who helped shorten the road to peace. Above all here in America. I think of Senator Kennedy, of Senator George Mitchell, Congressman Richie Neal here beside me, President Clinton and President Bush, of now Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
“I think of people across the whole Irish American community who devoted their time, their energy and their concrete help to building the momentum for peace and the groundwork for reconciliation,” McAleese told the assembled graduates and staff of the college.