I admire McAleese, but I’m glad her Presidency is coming to an end

STRAW polls would suggest that if Mary McAleese could run again for the Presidency, she would walk it. But the Constitution says presidents can be re-elected “only once”. Thank goodness.

Don’t get me wrong. I like and admire Mary Mac. We go back a long way to the days before she went to the Park and we argued like cat and dog as fellow members of Queen’s Senate. She always looks the part and brings dignity to the office while being refreshingly normal in private. (She still greets Northerners with a natural, friendly “What about ye?”) And in 14 years she has very rarely put a foot wrong: quite a feat for a person with strong views in a job which puts considerable constraints on the holder’s freedom of speech. That she has strong views is what I like most about her. She defends her corner tenaciously like the best of gutsy Northern women.

No, my problem is that I just don’t happen to agree with those views very often. Fourteen years in the Áras is a long time. Views change, people change. None of us would like to be held to things we said 20 or 30 years ago.