The following speech was delivered by Professor Tom Mitchell, former Trinity College Dublin Provost, Chairman of the Press Council of Ireland and Director of Atlantic Philanthropies, at the launch of the Ray Murphy Memorial Bursary at the GPO in Dublin on 22 April.
"This is a special occasion as we honour a special man and launch a Bursary which has the potential to make a real difference to philanthropy in Ireland.
I first knew Ray Murphy as an active member of the Trinity Business Alumni. He had done an MBA at Trinity and, as was his way, he immediately got involved with the Business Alumni. I remember attending Annual Dinners and hearing him preach the doctrine of giving, and rallying his colleagues to make a return to their alma mater.
I came to know him much better during his years at Tara Consultants or Atlantic Philanthropies, as it became known in the later 90’s when Chuck Feeney decided to break out of his anonymous phase.
Looking back, these were wonderful years, a Golden Age for Irish universities when Chuck Feeney began promoting his message that since Ireland had virtually no natural resources other than the brains of its large population of young people, it should concentrate on strengthening its educational system, especially its universities. Suddenly we had a determined and very wealthy ally and a great international foundation saying all the things we had been saying for years, but no one was listening. Well they listened to Chuck and to John Healy and to Ray |Murphy and Colin McCrea, and there began the great building program of the 90s, with government participation, to modernise and extend the infrastructure of Irish universities and send a signal to the world that Ireland was building a knowledge society that would have the most expert workforce of any developed country. And better still, there came with the buildings a program of research that brought Ireland centrally into the international research community. And Ray Murphy was at the centre of that development also. When he left Atlantic Philanthropies in 2000 he left behind a significant legacy. He went on to lead the civil society programs of the Mott Foundation where his energies were concentrated on building communities and promoting equality. He left further significant legacies there.
His whole career was devoted to philanthropy. He fervently believed in it as a means to greater social justice. He was tireless in his commitment and selflessly gave his time to a huge range of not-for-profit organisations. His energy and dedication were a long way above the ordinary.
I think it is wonderful that his work and devotion to social progress has not been forgotten and is being celebrated through the annual lecture and now through this Bursary which will give philanthropy a place as an important aspect of Social Studies, and that will help develop badly needed expertise and will encourage research in the area.
I think this would please Ray more than anything else, because it will bring to fruition one of his strong ambitions to establish a third level program in Ireland in philanthropy and social finance.
Atlantic Philanthropies is delighted and proud to be associated with this initiative and with the work of Clann Credo and Philanthropy Ireland.
Since Ray’s life was so much concerned with philanthropy in all its manifestations, I would like to say a few words about my view of philanthropy and what it means to our society. As you know, probably better than I, Ireland lags a long way behind its European peers when it comes to private giving. There are many reasons for this, but one that I find worrying is a negative attitude towards philanthropy based on the view that it is the task of government to provide for the country’s social needs and that the chief effect of developing philanthropy would be to give more tax breaks and greater status and influence of social priorities to the wealthy.
I believe this is a cop-out mentality, and represents a false concept of a responsible democracy, and ignores the fundamental ongoing obligation of the non-governmental mass of society to work actively and continually to improve society and achieve a better life for everyone.
One of the great weaknesses of modern representative democracy is that it provides few incentives to the public at large to stay engaged with public affairs in an active way. In many democratic States it often happens that a majority of citizens do not even bother to vote. I find that very frightening, but if we develop a culture of walking away and leaving everything to government the result is likely to be political apathy and a cult of individualism. Governments, of course, carry the primary responsibility for, as John Stuart Mill puts it, of protecting its citizens from harm, and for providing essential services and for leading the State towards economic and social progress, but working alongside government there must also be what Edmund Burke called the “small platoons” --- the community groups, the NGO’s, the numerous forms of association that are working in every community and nationally to remedy a social evil or advance a social good. Without this kind of engagement and activism by the whole of its people, a society loses its vitality and its soul.
Crucial to sustaining and encouraging the small platoons is private giving, philanthropy, on a small scale or a large scale. Philanthropy has only positive connotations. It is a beautiful Greek word which came into the European vocabulary about 2500 years ago. For the Greeks and their great thinkers such as Aristotle, it represented the natural instinct that unites people. It described the human empathy and human fellowship that caused Aristotle to say that man is a political animal fitted above all other living species for life in society. He argued that humans are not solitary or self-sufficient. They depend on each other, and they flourish where there is communal solidarity and an active spirit of service and dedication to the common good. But this in turn requires a spirit of generosity and sharing.
This is a view of philanthropy that is a far cry from talk of tax reliefs and status, but it is the true view of what philanthropy is about. It is about giving, or giving while living, to improve the lives of people, especially the vulnerable and disadvantaged. It is about social justice and it is what keeps alive the ethos of social solidarity and the spirit of generosity and sharing and working together for good causes. And it makes possible a host of good things that no government could ever achieve. Without it I believe societies are doomed to social fragmentation and alienation and ultimately to instability and a breakdown of social order.
Philanthropy was what the life of Ray Murphy was all about.
I will finish with some more wisdom from the past: two quotations that I believe reflect the way Ray Murphy thought and the kind of life he lived.
The first is from Aristotle again, his great works on Politics: “No citizen should think he belongs just to himself , but rather that everyone belongs to their society and care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.” That was written about 2350 years ago.
Three hundred years later Cicero wrote the following: “We are not born for ourselves alone; people are also created for the sake of people that they may help each other. Se we should follow our nature and nothing is more appropriate to human nature than generosity. The greatest benefit of wealth is the ability to indulge in generosity which should always favour the disadvantaged.”
I think Ray Murphy is one man who would have won the full approval of Aristotle and Cicero, two of the greatest thinkers of all time."
Visit www.raymurphybursary.org for more.