President of Ireland to deliver 2006 Commencement address
President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dames 161 th Commencement exercises May 21 (Sunday). The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. in the Joyce Center arena on campus.
"As an attorney, journalist, scholar and now president, Mary McAleese is an inspiring role model for women, a fierce champion for peace, and a passionate voice within the Catholic Church," said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame. "The theme of her presidency is building bridges, and she has done just that, while also staying true to herself. We are honored that she has accepted our invitation to speak to the Class of 2006 and receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame."
Mrs. McAleese was elected president in 1997 and stood unopposed for election to a second term in 2004. A native of Belfast, she is the country's eighth president and the first from Northern Ireland.
As part of her building bridges theme, President McAleese is a regular visitor to Northern Ireland, where she has been warmly welcomed by both the Catholic and Protestant communities, confounding critics who believed her election would lead to greater division. Among many conciliatory gestures, she officially recognizes both St. Patrick's Day and the Twelfth of July, the anniversary of the Protestant victory in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne.
The eldest of nine children, President McAleese was raised in a Catholic family in a mainly Protestant area of Belfast. During The Troubles, her family was forced to leave its home, settling in County Down. She studied law at Queens University in Belfast and was graduated with honors in 1973.
After practicing law for a year, President McAleese accepted a position at Dublin's Trinity College as the Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology, succeeding Mary Robinson, whom she later succeeded as Ireland's president. She left the university to work for two years as a journalist for the Frontline and Today Tonight programs on RTÉ, the national television network of Ireland. She continued to work part time with RTÉ after returning to Trinity in 1981.
President McAleese returned to Northern Ireland in 1987 to become director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies at her alma mater. Seven years later she was appointed a pro vice-chancellor at Queens, giving her management responsibilities for the entire university.
President McAleese served as a member of the Catholic Church Episcopal Delegation to the New Ireland Forum in 1984 and the Church's delegation to the North Commission on Contentious Parades in 1996. She also was a delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Trade and Investment in Ireland and to a follow-up conference a year later in Pittsburgh.
President McAleese is married to Dr. Martin McAleese, who in 2004 received an honorary degree from Notre Dame during the dedication of Dublin's historic O'Connell House as the new base for the University's programs in Ireland.
Other foreign heads of state to serve as Notre Dame's Commencement speaker include Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Albert Reynolds in 1994, Canadian Prime Ministers Lester Pearson (1963) and Pierre Trudeau (1982), and the president of El Salvador (and Notre Dame alumnus) Jose Napoleon Duarte (1985). Five U.S. presidents have been Commencement speakers at the University – Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Three others, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, received honorary degrees.
Originally published by at news.nd.edu on February 07, 2006.