McAleese says changing Ireland an inspiration

President Mary McAleese has told a US conference of writers, academics and politicians Ireland is experiencing a major identity change, with a transformed economy and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

“Who could have imagined a government in Northern Ireland with Sinn Fein ministers working side by side with the Ulster Unionists?” McAleese said in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“The little impoverished island off the west coast of Europe which 30 years ago became an unremarkable member of the European Union has become the symbol of the Union’s potential, the place with the economic success story that everywhere else wants to emulate,” McAleese told a crowd of several hundred at a conference, called Re-imagining Ireland.