Mary McAleese: Syrian refugees hoping for a helping hand

Mary McAleese, who said she had been “literally a refugee on my own island”, noted that the public is keen to talk about people, not numbers, when it comes to dealing with the crisis.

The image of a young Syrian boy washed ashore in Turkey earlier this week sparked outrage and calls for governments throughout Europe to do more to help the tens of thousands of people running from war.

Mrs McAleese who, with her family, had leave their home in Ardoyne, Belfast in 1969, said people in Ireland, Britain and across Europe are eager to help those in need.

“The ordinary men, women and children on the street have said ’actually, do you know what? We have to do something. We cannot just respond by talking about numbers or bureaucracies or structures. We have to talk about this human being to human being,”’ she told an audience at St Mary’s University in London.

Describing the fear felt by people trying to escape danger for want of a better life, Mrs McAleese said she remembers vividly the moment her father packed up her family and drove to Dublin in the middle of the night as violence broke out in Northern Ireland.

She said: “One of the things I learned from that experience is you are on your own, and that is how these people, who are refugees in, not a migrant crisis but a refugee crisis, that is how they are in reality.”

She said people who have left their homes “petrified”, will be hoping for a sense of common humanity and a helping hand.

Mrs McAleese was speaking at an event as part of a conference entitled Ireland: Agents of Social Transformation, organised by the British Association of Irish Studies.

She will take up a new role as Distinguished Professor of Irish Studies at the University in Twickenham in January next year.