The President, Mrs McAleese, drank tea and the President of Estonia, Mr Lennart Meri, had an Irish coffee and another cigarette at the Wilde Irish Pub in the university town of Tartu yesterday. This was bridge building, a theme of the McAleese presidency of which Tartu's Lord Mayor, Mr Andrus Ansip, was well aware. One of Catherine the Great's generals, he said, was an Irishman. As governor of Estonia in the late 18th century Gen George Brown had provided 500 roubles for the building of Tartu Town Hall where they now stood. But he also built the bridge over the river Emajogi.
The Irish President, said the mayor of a city which not only sees itself as a link between east and west but now has the most bridges in Estonia, was continuing the process of building bridges.
Tartu, 200 kilometres south of Tallinn, and its 400-year-old university have had a turbulent history as control changed back and forth between Sweden, Russia and Germany until under the Soviets it was designated a closed city. Up to 1989 Westerners could not visit, except in later years only on a day trip from Tallinn.
Outside the Wilde Irish Pub, owned by Dubliner Mr Liam Allen, the President and President Meri posed beside a modern sculpture which depicts an imaginary conversation between Oscar Wilde and the Estonian novelist, Eduard Wilde. The two hung out around the same time in Paris and Berlin but there is no evidence that they ever met and there is certainly no suggestion they were related. Completed only two years ago, the whimsical sculpture, paid for by public subscription, has become a city landmark.