McAleese recollects tragedy on wedding day
The outgoing president described how two of her dearest friends were murdered in a sectarian attack the day she married her husband Martin.
The grief stuck with them during their honeymoon trip to Kerry, which included a visit to O’Connell’s old home.
Giving the annual Daniel O’Connell lecture in the round hall at the Four Courts last night, Mrs McAleese spoke of his contribution to peace, justice as well as his impact on Irish history.
“There is a curious kind of personal synchronicity for both Martin and for me in acknowledging once again the legacy of Daniel O’Connell, but this time as we get ready to close the doors of Áras an Uachtaráin behind us.
“Soon after we first met as teenagers we discovered that we shared a hero in common. His name was Daniel O’Connell.”
While Martin McAleese at the time worked for Aer Lingus and they could have travelled cheaply, they chose to honeymoon at home.
The newlyweds drove from the North to Kerry in a small Fiat 126 and the centre of their 10-day break in Kerry and West Cork was a visit to O’Connell’s old home at Caherdaniel.
But the brutal killings of their friends haunted them as they returned to their marital home in Belfast.
“We were going back after a 10-day respite in Kerry to live in a complex and violent city that was still living out a skewed political history that Daniel O’Connell would have known inside out, though he had died a hundred years before Martin and I were born.”
Mrs McAleese told those who attended the lecture that O’Connell never saw his vision come to fruition; that of a country with a constitution, a parliament, laws and where citizens had a right to vote,
O’Connell had been a political leader recognised on a world stage, she added, who was also moved by the plight of American slaves.
His legacy had even influenced the Good Friday Agreement, Mrs McAleese said, adding:
“Would O’Connell recognise today’s Ireland? Yes I think he would; this is the Ireland he imagined a very long time ago; the Ireland he longed for, worked for and prayed for.”
Mrs McAleese is due to leave her position and Áras an Uachtaráin with her family on November 11.
