Mary Kennedy meets former president and author Mary McAleese.

“Mary McAleese - President of Ireland from 1997 to 2011, the first person from Northern Ireland to hold that role. She is a barrister and academic lawyer qualified in both civil law and Catholic Church canon law. She was the first female Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Queen’s University Belfast and is currently Professor of Children, Religion and Law at the University of Glasgow. She is Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin where she held her first academic post as Reid Professor.

She was born into a Catholic family in North Belfast’s Ardoyne in 1951. Northern Ireland, to quote David Trimble its one time Ulster Unionist First Minister, was then “a cold house for Catholics”. The eldest of nine children, Mary’s family experienced first-hand the political and sectarian violence which dragged on for decades destroying lives, relationships and hopes. Her response to the challenge of such a bitterly divided society was to become deeply involved in promoting anti-sectarianism, reconciliation and inter-religious dialogue. She was co-author of a seminal report on the Churches’ response to sectarianism which was jointly commissioned by the Catholic Church and the Irish Council of Churches (which represents the main Protestant Churches). The theme of her Presidency was Building Bridges and throughout her fourteen years in office she worked to heal the fractured politico/sectarian relationships on the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. Her ambition was to replace a culture of deep distrust with one of good neighbourliness especially extending the hand of friendship to the hard to reach Loyalist communities. In 2011 she invited and hosted HM Queen Elizabeth II on the first state visit to the Irish Republic by a British monarch. After leaving office in 2011 she spent the following three years living in Rome and studying at the Pontifical Gregorian University where she obtained a licentiate and doctorate in canon law. In 2019 she was awarded the Alfons Auer Award in Ethics of the Catholic Faculty of Theology at the University of Tubingen. In 2020 she received the Woman of Courage Award of UNANIMA International at a ceremony in the United Nations HQ, New York.”