McAleese ‘complete’ after receiving freedom accolade
“For most of us, that accident of birth over which we had no control is unalterable, unchangeable,” she told up to 200 guests at the ceremony in City Hall.
“We are destined to go through life apologising for not being from Cork, and being starved spectators at the feast that is Corkness.
“But for a very small and lucky band, history can be rewritten, and today I am privileged to have conferred on me the freedom of this mighty city.”
Ms McAleese becomes the fourth Irish president conferred with the title.
Lord Mayor Deirdre Clune said she chose Ms McAleese for opening up the office of President.
“The door to the President and the Presidency has never been more inviting to the marginalised, disenfranchised, and excluded,” she said.
Ms McAleese used the Heineken Cup and The Wind That Shakes The Barley Palme d’Or success to illustrate the spirit of the city, which she branded “Cork-sureness”, often mistaken by the ignorant as cocksureness, she said.
She recalled meeting Seán Óg Ó hAilpín recently.
“He shook my hand and told me disarmingly and seriously he would next shake my hand in September in Croke Park,” she said.
Earlier she opened the €4 million Áras Leon housing project for the elderly in Bishopstown.
The President also visited Presentation Brothers school on the Mardyke.
The custom of awarding the Freedom of the City dates from the 14th century.
Previous recipients include Charles Stewart Parnell, William Gladstone, Woodrow Wilson, John F Kennedy, Eamonn de Valera, Jack Lynch, Con Murphy, John Hume, Br Jerome Kelly, Sonia O’Sullivan and Roy Keane.
