The President, Mrs McAleese, has called on people in Northern Ireland to take responsibility for their future rather than leaving affairs in the hands of politicians.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony for students at the Northern Ireland Hotel and Catering College in Portrush, Co Antrim, Mrs McAleese said everybody should contribute to making the peace process work.
"It would be easy to sit back and wait for politicians to make things happen. But in this particular moment in history it is vital that we do not hand over responsibility to someone else."
Mrs McAleese said it was important that people adopted new attitudes for the new millennium. "We live in dramatically changing times for Ireland North and South. Standing on the brink of a new century and millennium gives us a unique perspective, as our minds look both backwards and forwards in centuries rather than years," she said.
Focusing on tourism, Mrs McAleese said that as a result of recent history, tourism had contributed less to the Northern than the Southern economy.
"The past we cannot change, but the future we can shape if we take to ourselves the responsibility and the challenge," she said. ailte. The benefits of this are obvious," she concluded.
At the annual chaplaincy lecture at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Co Antrim, earlier in the day, Mrs McAleese chose a theme of "Forgiveness and embracing the road to dismantling a culture of conflict".
She said it was both "terrifying and chastening" to read a recent study by the university according to which children as young as two were aware of categories such as Catholic, Protestant, RUC and IRA.
"Children are sponges who absorb from their parents, not only the rudiments of language, but the sentiments behind it . . . If we want to dismantle this culture of conflict, it is there in the cradle that we must begin," she said.
At a prize-giving ceremony at St Louis Grammar School in Kilkeel, Co Down, last night, Mrs McAleese urged pupils to embark on the next phase of their lives with an open mind.
"This society, its future, its values, its priorities will be what you make them, collectively and individually," she said.