Events in the US last year had "palpably changed" public attitudes to the fire services in Ireland, Dublin's assistant chief fire officer Mr Hugh O'Neill said yesterday. Such attitudes had "always been very good" but now "are on a different plane", he said.
He felt this was manifest particularly where fund-raising events involving the fire brigade were concerned, not least in the response to an appeal by them to assist the New York firefighters, which was "tremendous".
There had always been "a lot of contact" between Irish and New York firemen, both on an official and a personal level, but much more so this past year, he said.
On St Patrick's Day, 40 Irish firemen took part in the New York parade and, on October 12th, 36 Dublin firemen will be attending the special firefighters memorial service at Ground Zero, he said.
Mr O'Neill was speaking following a special service at Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral yesterday "in thanksgiving for the emergency services in Ireland and the US". It was attended by representatives of the fire brigade, the Garda, the Order of Malta, the Irish Coast Guard, and the RNLI.
The first reading was by Ms Jane Benton Fort, Charges d'Affaires at the American Embassy in Dublin, and the second reading was by Government Chief Whip, Ms Mary Hanafin. The Dean of St Patrick's, the Very Rev Robert MacCarthy, gave the blessing.
In his sermon, Rev Kevin Moroney, chaplain tutor at the Church of Ireland Theological College in Dublin, paraphrased President Kennedy's 1963 Berlin speech. On September 11th last year "we all became New Yorkers. Or at a minimum, New York became a greater part of us," he said.
"New York makes a particularly moving picture of humanity because it is not only the largest American city, it is the largest Irish city in the world, it is the largest Italian city, it is the largest Jewish city, and, while I don't know the statistics, I am pretty certain that New York is one of the largest Muslim cities. Everybody was there. In essence we were there."
September 11th was, he said, "a day that was hijacked and crashed into the structures of the world. And we took a hard hit. The political, military and economic systems of the world have been shaken. The weaker joints of the world have buckled under tremendous pressure. More innocent people have died and many are losing their jobs. But the building is still standing. The world may not be as safe as I once thought it was, but it appears that the world is also not as fragile as we at first feared. I take some hope in that."
The service ended with choir and congregation singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
