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Brandon/Mount Eagle Pubs

The Road from Ardoyne: The Making of a President [Harback], Ray Mac Manais

The Road from Ardoyne: The Making of a President [Harback], Ray Mac Manais

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Born the eldest of nine children on 27 June 1951 in Belfast, Mary McAleese witnessed as a teenager the anti-Catholic pogroms of 1969 which saw streets around her burned out by loyalist mobs led by the police. As further attacks came, she found herself gathering bottles to make petrol bombs, only to be stopped in her tracks by her father, who then packed his family into the car and set off for the safety of Dublin. They returned to Belfast, but were forced to flee from their home in Ardoyne, which lay close to a loyalist area, after it came under repeated attack.
She graduated in Law from the Queen’s University of Belfast in 1973 and was called to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1974. In 1975, she was appointed Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin and in 1987, she returned to her Alma Mater, Queen’s, to become Director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. In 1994, she became the first female Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Queen’s University of Belfast.
She worked as a current affairs journalist and presenter in radio and television with Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) and was a Director of Channel 4 Television. During her time in RTE she came under concerted attack from some fellow broadcasters who regarded any northern nationalist as being a "crypto-Provo".
She has a longstanding interest in many issues concerned with justice, equality, social inclusion, anti-sectarianism and reconciliation. She was a member of the Catholic Church Episcopal Delegation to the New Ireland Forum in 1984, and she was a founder member of the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas.
On 11 November 1997 she became the first President to come from Northern Ireland, but only after a vitriolic campaign which, again, sought to characterise her as a "crypto-Provo". As President she has enjoyed a remarkably high approval rating in opinion polls, and it is clear that if she decides to run for a second seven-year term she will be re-elected with a very large majority. She is married, since 1976, to Dr Martin McAleese, an accountant and dentist. They have three children, Emma, born 1982 and twins Justin and SaraMai, born 1985.

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