President McAleese - She proved office is not just symbolic

IF our Constitution would allow it, and if the lady could be persuaded, it is certain President Mary McAleese would begin a third term this winter.

Instead, after 14 years in the public eye, she and her husband Senator Martin McAleese, leave Áras an Uachtaráin secure in the knowledge they helped make Ireland, all of it, a far better place to live.

They helped make many Irish people more tolerant, more aware of the other and less insular than we were. By using nothing more than the opportunities afforded by her greatly constrained office she, and her husband, helped copper-fasten a new, positive relationship between all communities on this island.

Those relationships would have been impossible in the Belfast of 1951, the year of her birth, and even 14 years ago encouraging and maintaining them was a considerable challenge.

Before she was elected a detractor described her a “tribal time bomb” — indeed she was, but in the most positive, the most inspiring way. She confronted all tribes with the destructiveness of some of their beliefs and helped them build the confidence needed to move away from the entrenched positions that have demeaned and stymied this island for centuries.

She, continuing work begun by her predecessor Mary Robinson, challenged so many of the unthinking sectarian positions once tolerated in all communities.

This commitment was not without its cost and it should be remembered one of the nastiest attacks on her came from the then Archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell — and another from the prominent nationalist, the late Fr Denis Faul — when, in 1997, she took Holy Communion in the Church of Ireland Christ Church Cathedral.

The Catholic Hierarchy, after a meeting in Maynooth, went so far as to warn her it should not happen again. Fr Faul described her support for ecumenism as a form of adultery.

Remember, she was our freely elected head of state when these criticisms were made. That such comments would not be tolerated today, even if they were made, is a measure of the progress President McAleese has helped bring about. It also underlines how the power of the Catholic Church has waned.

Her greatest achievements, naturally enough, were domestic but she has done more than most to enhance Ireland’s international reputation.

That work came to a climax this summer with the belated visit of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

There has not been a visit to this country that resonated as deeply in the Irish psyche since President John F Kennedy’s triumphant and inspiring tour, just months before his assassination, in 1963.

It is difficult to imagine another that might surpass it in terms of symbolism and recognising positive change. It was the strongest possible declaration to ourselves and to the world of our new, constitutional reality. Those achievements were on a grand stage but they were matched by countless endorsements, encouragements and enabling challenges to myriad community and special project groups. President McAleese operated effectively at both ends of the spectrum.

She did so much too to enhance the idea that our democracy depends on — a willingness to serve in public office in a dignified, purposeful and fair way. At a point when so much about life in public office or service is challenged — or avoided altogether — she showed what could be achieved by determination, the motivation of a just cause and overriding purpose.

At a time when so many office holders and senior civil servants face scrutiny about pay and pensions it should be pointed out that serving as President has probably cost Mrs McAleese and her husband money but you will not hear a murmur from them.

However, by far her, and Senator McAleese’s, greatest achievement is the role they played in helping make this an island at peace with itself and its neighbours.

By a quirk of fate she was the right person in the right place at the very right time. One of nine Catholic children born in Belfast she built an academic career beyond the reach of most of her contemporaries. This background helped her see the pointlessness of inter-communal terror and made her one of a very small group who can say they helped their society break out of a bitter cycle of self-destruction.

If she had done nothing else, and she has done so much more, this would have made her presidency a great success.

She has set a very high bar for her successor and shown that the office is far, far more than a symbolic indulgence.