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.