First term (1997–2004) at
Áras an Uachtaráin on 12 December 2000 In 1997, McAleese defeated former
Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and former minister
Michael O'Kennedy in an internal party election held to determine the
Fianna Fáil nomination for the Irish presidency. Her opponents in the
1997 presidential election were
Mary Banotti, nominated by
Fine Gael,
Adi Roche nominated by the
Labour Party,
Democratic Left and the
Green Party, and two candidates standing as
Independents nominated by local authorities:
Dana Rosemary Scallon and
Derek Nally. McAleese won 45.2% of first preference votes. In the second and final count, McAleese was elected having obtained 55.6% of votes against Banotti. On 11 November 1997, she was inaugurated as the eighth President of Ireland. Within weeks of this, she made her first official overseas trip to
Lebanon. McAleese described the theme of her presidency as "building bridges". The first individual born in Northern Ireland to become President of Ireland, President McAleese was a regular visitor to Northern Ireland throughout her presidency, where she was on the whole warmly welcomed by both communities, confounding critics who had believed she would be a divisive figure. People from Northern Ireland, indeed people from right across the nine-county Province of
Ulster, were regular and recurring visitors to
Áras an Uachtaráin while she was president. In 1998, she met Cardinal
Bernard Law of Boston on an official visit to the
United States. In an interview in 2012, she said that Law told her he was "sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as President" and went on to insult a
Minister of State, who was accompanying McAleese. "His remarks were utterly inappropriate and unwelcome," she said. McAleese told the cardinal that she was the "President of Ireland and not just of Catholic Ireland". At this point, a heated argument ensued between the two, according to McAleese.
Second term (2004–2011) McAleese's first seven-year term of office ended in November 2004, but she stood for a second term in the
2004 presidential election. Following the failure of any other candidate to secure the necessary support for nomination, the incumbent president stood unopposed, with no political party affiliation, and was declared elected on 1 October 2004. She was re-inaugurated at the commencement of her second seven-year term on 11 November 2004. McAleese's very high approval ratings were widely seen as the reason for her re-election, with no opposition party willing to bear the cost (financial or political) of competing in an election that would prove difficult to win. On 27 January 2005, following her attendance at the ceremony commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of
Auschwitz concentration camp, she created friction by referring to the way some Protestant children in Northern Ireland had been raised to hate Catholics, just as European children "for generations, for centuries" were encouraged to hate
Jews. These remarks provoked outrage among
unionist politicians. McAleese later apologised, conceding that her comments had been unbalanced because she had criticised only the sectarianism found on one side of the community.
Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 She was the
Commencement Speaker at
Villanova University in
Villanova, Pennsylvania, on 22 May 2005. The visit prompted protests by conservatives because of the president's professing
heterodox Catholic views on homosexuality and women in the priesthood. She was the commencement speaker at the
University of Notre Dame on 21 May 2006. In her commencement address, among other topics, she spoke of her pride at Notre Dame's Irish heritage, including the nickname the "
Fighting Irish". She attended the
funeral of Pope John Paul II on 8 April 2005, and the Papal Inauguration of
Pope Benedict XVI on 24 April 2005. McAleese attended the canonisation by
Pope Benedict XVI in Rome of
Charles of Mount Argus on 3 June 2007. She was accompanied by
her husband, Martin, Cardinal
Desmond Connell,
Mary Hanafin, the
Minister for Education and Science, together with bishops and other pilgrims. She later met the Pope and embarked on other official duties, including a trip to
St. Isidore's College, a talk at the
Pontifical Irish College and a
Mass said especially for the Irish Embassy at Villa Spada chapel. In August 2007, she spoke out against homophobia at the International Association of Suicide Prevention's 24th Biennial Conference. She paid a seven-day visit to
Hollywood in December 2008, alongside
Enterprise Ireland and the
Irish Film Board on a mission to promote the Irish film and television industry. In 2009,
Forbes named her among the hundred most powerful women in the world later that year. McAleese undertook an official two-day visit to
London on 28–29 February 2010, where she visited the site of the
2012 Summer Olympics, and was guest of honour at the
Madejski Stadium for a
rugby union match between
London Irish and
Harlequin F.C. On 13 May 2010, she attended the
Balmoral Show at the
Balmoral Showgrounds, which includes the King's Hall, in south Belfast.
Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness and
Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew gave her breakfast and walked around with her during the day. She began an official visit to
New York City for several days, on 16 May 2010. She began by appearing at an
Irish Voice event in honour of
life science. and opened the
An Gorta Mór (
Great Famine) exhibition with a speech promising that Ireland's foreign policy focussed on global hunger. She was also present at
St. Patrick's Cathedral for a Famine mass and went to the
Battery Park City's
Irish Hunger Memorial to see the official New York commemoration of the 19th-century Irish Famine. She opened the
Bloom Festival, Ireland's largest gardening show, on 3 June 2010, acknowledging an improved interest in gardening in Ireland, particularly among younger people. On 13 June 2010, McAleese began an official visit to
China. She met with
Vice President of China Xi Jinping and the pair spoke for 35 minutes over lunch.
Barack Obama at
Áras an Uachtaráin on 23 May 2011 She made an official visit to
Russia, with
Minister of State,
Billy Kelleher, for four days in September 2010, and met with
President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. She spoke kindly of
Mikhail Gorbachev, officially invited Medvedev to Ireland, and addressed students at a university in
Saint Petersburg. She called for warmer relations between the
European Union and Russia. On her state tour to Russia, highlighting the importance of competence, she launched an unprecedented attack on the
Central Bank of Ireland, for their role in the financial crisis which resulted in tens of thousands of people in mortgage arrears. The President turned down an invitation to be
Grand Marshal at the 250th
St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City planned for 2011. The parade organisers refused to allow gay people to march under their banner, and there was media speculation that this was the reason for the refusal. A spokesperson for the President's office stated that, while honoured by the invitation, she could not attend because of "scheduling constraints". In March 2011, President McAleese invited
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom to make a
state visit to
Ireland. The Queen accepted, and
the visit took place from 17 to 20 May 2011, the first state visit by a British monarch since Ireland had gained independence. McAleese had been eager to have the Queen visit Ireland, and the event was widely welcomed as a historic success. In past media interviews, prior to the Queen's visit, President McAleese had stated on several occasions that the highlight of her presidency to date was the opening ceremony of the
2003 Special Olympics World Games, which she describes as "a time when Ireland was at its superb best". While opening the
National Ploughing Championships in
County Kildare in September 2011, she spoke of her sadness that she would soon no longer be president, saying: "I'm going to miss it terribly ... I'll miss the people and the engagement with them". Mary McAleese made her final overseas visit as head of state to Lebanon in October 2011, the location of her very first official overseas visit in 1997. While there she met with
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. Before her trip to Lebanon she visited
Derry, on one of her last official engagements to Northern Ireland, becoming the inaugural speaker at the first Conversations Across Walls and Borders event in First Derry
Presbyterian Church. She voluntarily donated more than 60 gifts given to her over the 14 years, and worth about €100,000, to the Irish state. McAleese left office on 10 November 2011; she was succeeded by
Michael D. Higgins, who had been elected in the
presidential election held on 27 October 2011. On 10 November 2011, her last day in office, she thanked Ireland for her two terms in an article in
The Irish Times. She performed her last official public engagement at a hostel for homeless men in Dublin in the morning and spent the afternoon moving out of Áras an Uachtaráin.
Council of State Meetings Presidential appointees First term • Gordon Brett •
Brian Crowley • Ruth Curtis • Christina Carney Flynn •
Stanislaus Kennedy •
Martin Naughton • Noel Stewart
Second term •
Harvey Bicker • Anastasia Crickley •
Mary Davis •
Martin Mansergh •
Enda Marren •
Denis Moloney •
Daráine Mulvihill ==Post-presidency (since 2011)==