Madam, - During the week I spent in Dublin at the Special Olympics World Games I was asked by virtually every Dubliner I encountered some variation on the question: "what do you think of the Games. . .How do you think we're faring?"
Similarly, the Games evoked from the Irish press a series of moving reflections on the values influencing contemporary Ireland; a concern over the coarsening of Irish civic life; a pondering of the challenges to Celtic homogeneity inherent in EU membership; and apprehension about what might be revealed of the Irish people in its treatment of the "other".
All this was prompted by the paradox of people with learning disabilities (in Canada we would say "mental disabilities") instructing the rest of us in the affairs of the heart and in the rudiments of civic virtue.
At first, I took the questions and the public introspection as signs of some sort of national insecurity. Yet how could a people who gave the world Swift and Shaw, Joyce and Yeats and Beckett, have any need of affirmation from anybody? How could a city capable of staging an opening ceremony of unsurpassed artistic brilliance, suffused with utter joy, require any affirmation beyond the rapturous gladness that enveloped Croke Park on June 21st, and was still in the Dublin air days later?
The Canadian delegation's stay in their host town of Enniscorthy was an astounding experience of human connectedness that will abide with them forever. The athletics venue, Morton Stadium, was one of the most blessed places on our planet last week, bathed in sunlight, a beautiful, technically superb facility whose architecture encouraged a remarkable intimacy among and between athletes and spectators. I could go on and on.
The soccer pitches at University College, Dublin? A spectacular field of dreams. The National Aquatics Centre? Beyond words. Dublin 2003 was a Games for the ages, which is why, for years to come, host cities around the world will vie for second place.
By the end of my week in Dublin, I had concluded that the Irish weren't so much seeking affirmation as they were searching for kindred spirits. You truly delight in who you are and you hope others can see how much of the business of living you have got right. Quite a lot, in my estimation.
Yet you face a further challenge now the Games are over. We do well to remember that Special Olympics, before it is anything else, is a community-based sports programme. It is designed to impart skills and provide the athletes the opportunity to test their skills in competitions at various levels. The vast majority of Special Olympics athletes will experience this programme in their own communities, or not at all.
The core business is not to inspire the rest of us every now and then, although the movement invariably does that. The task is to create a grass-roots sport environment congenial to people with mental disabilities, with an organisational stability sufficient to provide regular opportunities for training, competition, friendship and the host of other human satisfactions inherent in sport. Not every four years, but every day.
This world-wide movement, which, as we have witnessed, can hearten and enrich whole countries, is chronically under-funded everywhere in the world, and is nowhere realising its promise. Countries that moved mountains to send a team to Dublin will return to corporate indifference, governmental neglect and public apathy, unable to build reliable service delivery systems for want of funds. Hundreds of thousands - millions - of potential athletes will not find this programme, nor will it find them, for want of resources.
Anyone who has seen a Special Olympics athlete perform needs no explanation. Deeds are the language of valour; it is a universal language and the inarticulate, especially, speak it most persuasively. So the further task is this: to nurture these singular moments of enlightenment, these best moments such as Dublin 2003, and root them in our habits of mind and in our public policies so that there is a playing field, a coach and some mates for every athlete out there.
It is my ardent wish that the Irish corporations which so generously funded the Games, the Government which encouraged them and the citizens who enlivened them, will now set about making Special Olympics Ireland the best sports organisation to be found anywhere, and Ireland a beacon showing the world how to do Special Olympics 365 days a year.
May I extend, on behalf of the Canadian delegation, our fondest thanks to the Irish people, whose prodigal kindness made departing your shores for our beloved Canada bittersweet indeed. - Yours, etc.,
JIM JORDAN,
President,
Special Olympics Canada,
Toronto,
Canada.
Madam, - One small but notable point about Hazel Zumbado's great achievement in completing the 15-metre Unassisted Swim, as reported so movingly by Frank McNally (The Irish Times, June 26th) is that she would not have heard the encouraging crowd's "shouting, screaming \ rhythmic handclap", nor spoken of her own joy on completing what must have been an arduous swim for her: she was deaf and mute.
All the more reason to admire her silent personal victory, and to learn from it. - Yours, etc.,
JOE COLGAN,
Laytown,
Co Meath.