Mary McAleese - Background, Presidency

President of Ireland (1997– ), born in Belfast, NE Northern Ireland, UK. She studied at Queen's University, Belfast, moving in 1975 to Trinity College Dublin as professor of criminal law. She also worked as a television journalist (1979–81), and in the 1980s became known as an outspoken campaigner for a wide range of social causes. In 1987 she moved into university administration at Queen's, becoming the first woman and Catholic pro-vice-chancellor in 1994. Despite her northern background, she became the presidential successor to Mary Robinson in the 1997 election. In 2004, she was elected for a second 7-year term.

She was first elected president in 1997 and was re-elected, without contest, to another seven year term in 2004. Born in Belfast in Northern Ireland, prior to becoming president she was a barrister, journalist and academic.

Background

McAleese was born Mary Patricia Leneghan (Irish: Máire Páidrigín Ní Lionnacháin) on 27 June 1951 in Ardoyne, Belfast where she grew up. In 1975 she was appointed Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology in Trinity College, succeeding Mary Robinson (a succession that would repeat itself twenty years later, when McAleese assumed the presidency).

McAleese was a member of the Catholic Church Episcopal Delegation to the New Ireland Forum in 1984 and a member of the Catholic Church delegation to the North Commission on Contentious Parades in 1996. Prior to becoming president in 1997 McAleese had also held the following positions:

Director of Channel 4 Television.

Presidency

Styles of Mary McAleese, President of Ireland
Reference style	Uachtarán, President
spoken style	Uachtarán, President
Alternative style	A Shoilse/Soilse, His/Her Excellency

In 1997 McAleese defeated former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in an internal, party election held to determine the Fianna Fáil nomination for the Irish presidency. On 11 November, 1997, she was inaugurated as the eighth President of Ireland, the first time in history that a woman had succeeded another woman as an elected head of state anywhere in the world.

McAleese's initial seven year term of office ended in November 2004, but she announced on 14 September of that year that she would be standing for a second term in the 2004 presidential election. Following the failure of any other candidate to secure the necessary support for a nomination, the incumbent president stood unopposed, with no political party affiliation, and was declared elected on 1 October.

McAleese has said that the theme of her presidency is "building bridges". The first individual born in Northern Ireland to become President of Ireland, President McAleese is a regular visitor to Northern Ireland, where she has been on the whole warmly welcomed by both communities, confounding the critics who had believed she would be a divisive figure.

On 27 January 2005, following her attendance at the ceremony commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, she caused controversy by making reference to the way in which some Protestant children in Northern Ireland had been brought up to hate Catholics just as German children were encouraged to hate Jews under the Nazis.

Article	Reserve power	Subject	Outcome
1.	1999 meeting	Address to the Oireachtas	The new millennium	Address given
2.	2000 meeting	Referral of bill to the Supreme Court	(a) Planning and Development Bill, 1999 (b) Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill, 1999	(a) Bill referred (b) Bill referred (Both upheld)
3.	2002 meeting	Referral of bill to the Supreme Court	Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Bill, 2001	Bill not referred
4.	2004 meeting	Referral of bill to the Supreme Court	Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2004	Bill referred (Struck down)

Presidential appointees

First term

Gordon Brett Brian Crowley, MEP Ruth Curtis Christina Carney Flynn Sr.