A leading Australian republican yesterday held up the President, Mrs McAleese, as evidence that his country no longer needed a British monarch as its head of state.
The author Thomas Keneally spoke out after the President made three important speeches to packed audiences in Sydney and had her first taste of the pomp and circumstance of an Australian state luncheon. Australia is preparing for a controversial referendum next year on whether it should become a republic and replace Queen Elizabeth with a president by the year 2001.
At the lunch attended by dignitaries who included the pro-republic former prime minister, Mr Paul Keating, protocol determined that President McAleese make a formal toast to the queen as the official head of state.
Afterwards Mr Keneally said the monarchists used to argue that no mere mortal was qualified to take the place of the royals.
He continued: "I would say we need an Australian version of Mary McAleese, someone who at least spiritually has been a communicant across the borders of sect and race, someone who understands her country and its place in the world in a profound manner, in which our present head of state, with all the best intentions on earth, could not possibly do." During a hectic round of engagements Mrs McAleese was almost mobbed by descendants of Irish orphan girls who were sent to Australia between 1848 and 1850. In her most moving duty so far, she removed a stone at the historic Hyde Park Barracks to start construction of a massive sculpture to commemorate the Great Famine.
More than 4,000 Irish orphan girls, aged between 13 and 18, were sent to Australia during the Famine to work as virtual slaves and many passed through the forbidding barracks. "I think we're here to vindicate their courage and it's wonderful to have their story told and now there will be a monument to be their story." said President McAleese. She said the Famine had left an indelible mark on the Irish consciousness. In an emotional speech which moved some descendants of the girls to tears, the President said many of the orphans were younger than her own teenage children, who still ran to "mammy with hurts and cuts".
"Too many of those who came here never knew that love, that nurturing, but it is to their credit that they endured awesome hardships to become witnesses to the indomitable Irish spirit."
Some of the descendants had travelled from all over Australia and even from New Zealand for the occasion, including Mrs Robyn Wines, whose great-great-grandmother was Maria Maher from Galway.
Maria arrived on the ship Thomas Arbuthnot, and according to Mrs Wines was typical in using what education she had to become a respected schoolteacher, marry a farmer and have 11 children. Each of the orphan girls' often tragic stories echoed one of the President's constant themes of the day, which was that the individual can make a difference and that many of Irish birth and heritage have done just that to Australia. Earlier in an address to prominent Australian women she said Ireland's struggle for equality of opportunity was far from over and there was still a worrying disparity between men's and women's pay. Today the President's party flies to Tasmania for a day of lower-key events after the motorcades and crowds of Sydney, Australia's largest city.