In a ceremony which reflected her themes of inclusiveness and reconciliation, Mary McAleese was inaugurated as Ireland's eighth President yesterday, pledging to build bridges and help ease tensions North and South. During a day of ritual lightened by several populist and modern touches the President referred to the "profound privilege" of becoming President of "this beautiful, intriguing country" which "sits tantalisingly ready to embrace a golden age of affluence, self-assurance, tolerance and peace".
Surrounded by dignitaries of church and State, Mrs McAleese repeated the Declaration of Office, undertaking to maintain the Constitution and uphold the laws of the State. The Taoiseach, Government Ministers and Council of State members, including former Presidents Dr Patrick Hillery and Mrs Mary Robinson, and four former Taoisigh, including Mr Charles Haughey, were among those who flanked Mrs McAleese during the inauguration ceremony.
Despite the formality of the proceedings in St Patrick's Hall, the tone of the day was set by the several hundred enthusiastic children who cheered every ambassador, minister and guest as their limousines entered the Yard.
Twenty children from each county on the island had been invited to Dublin Castle for the day and, as the President emerged after her inauguration, they punctured the formality once again with a rhythmic chant of "Mary, Mary". The President spent close to 30 minutes shaking hands with, and talking to, the children before leaving for Aras an Uachtarain.
The formal ceremony in St Patrick's Hall started with a prayer service led by leaders of five main Christian Churches and the Chief Rabbi. The Declaration of Office was read in Irish by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Liam Hamilton, and repeated by Mrs McAleese.
In a populist gesture the President then descended from the top platform to shake hands and exchange greetings with 26 people from various strands of Irish life who had been invited to the ceremony. They included a Northern Ireland unionist councillor, Mr Harvey Bicker, as well as a nurse, an unemployed person, a refugee, a journalist and a politician.
The first Irish President to be born in Northern Ireland was inaugurated in the presence of key players in the peace process, including the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, the Alliance Party leader, Lord Alderdice, and the chairman of the multi-party talks, Mr George Mitchell, the former US Senator.
In her first speech as President, Mrs McAleese quoted approvingly the words of the late Cearbhall O Dalaigh, Ireland's fifth President: "Presidents, under the Irish Constitution, don't have policies. But . . . a President can have a theme."
Her theme, she said, was building bridges. She spoke specifically of building bridges between the comfortable and the struggling; between those delighted by the rapid changes in Ireland and those cautious or fearful about these; and between the traditions in Northern Ireland.
"At our core", she said, "we are a sharing people . . . We know our duty is to spread the benefits of our prosperity to those whose lives are still mired in poverty, unemployment, worry and despair. There can be no rest until the harsh gap between the comfortable and the struggling has been bridged."
She wanted to point the way to a reconciliation of the tensions between "those who absorb the rush of newness with delight [and] those who are more cautious, even fearful". She wanted Ireland to become more comfortable with its diversity as - in the words of Belfast poet Louis MacNeice - "A single purpose can be founded on a jumble of opposites."
Turning to Northern Ireland, she said she knew that to speak of reconciliation was to "raise a nervous query in the hearts of some North of the Border".
However, she cited three examples of where bitter differences had been overcome: nationalists and unionists had fought and died together in two World Wars, "the differences which separated them at home fading into insignificance as the bond of their common humanity forged friendships as intense as love can make them"; in Europe, once bitter enemies now worked "conscientiously with each other and for each other as friends and partners"; the late Gordon Wilson, whose "words of love and forgiveness shocked us as if we were hearing them for the very first time, as if they had not been uttered first 2,000 years ago".
Mrs McAleese said that she wanted to help in any way she could the work of the late Gordon Wilson and other peacemakers who had "risen above the awesome pain of loss to find a bridge to the other side". She invited people to work with her "to dedicate ourselves to the task of creating a wonderful millennium gift to the Child of Bethlehem, whose 2,000th birthday we will soon celebrate - the gift of an island where difference was celebrated with joyful curiosity and generous respect and where, in the words of John Hewitt, `each may grasp his neighbour's hand as friend'."
In his speech, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, suggested that Mrs McAleese would have a key role in bridging the gap between the modern and the traditional. The President would be "representing a young, modern country in the throes of dynamic development that nevertheless wants to remain proud of all that is best in our distinctive values and traditions".