Some listeners were rather alarmed, and may still be, at an interview that went out just before 1 p.m. on Radio Ireland last Sunday. Throughout the programme the presenter, Magill editor John Ryan, said they hoped to have the President, Mrs McAleese on live from Lebanon at any minute. At last, on a bad line from Beirut, a Northern voice came through. She was disappointed that the Irish media had not noted that a ceasefire had been in operation since she arrived, she said, adding that Catholics should learn to embrace pluralism and show the tolerance that was the hallmark of the Protestant tradition; that she would take Communion in a Protestant church again, and when it was suggested that she was a woman of great sexuality she said this obviously arose from reports that she had ordered a double bed for her visit. Then the line went dead.
A reporter who rang Radio Ireland for a transcript elicited the response "Gotcha!"
The real President's trip to the troops passed off flawlessly with the only unseemly behaviour coming from local journalists. When a photocall and brief press conference was called at the Irish headquarters in Tibnin the Lebanese press pack shouldered the bemused Irish aside and hogged the space in front of the President's podium. At the last minute, the Defence Forces' 6foot 4-inch, 16-stone, exrugby-playing press officer Eoghan O Neachtain stepped in. He physically lifted the podium and turned it sideways away from the Lebanese and back into line for the Irish. He stopped dissent by demanding silence for the arrival of the President.
It is understood that the idea for the visit, which was seen as a public relations coup in defining the new presidential qualities, emanated from the Army press office. For the Aras it represented a break from the Communion row and the Defence Forces enjoyed a few days of relief from the deafness controversy.