Irish President to Give Commencement Address

The speaker for this year's commencement will be President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Fordham announced on April 21. McAleese will also be receiving an honorary doctorate of laws.

McAleese, president since November 1997, is both the second woman to ascend to Ireland's highest elected office and the second Irish president to speak at Fordham's commencement ceremony. In both cases, Mary Robinson, who was president between 1990 and 1997 and spoke at Fordham in 1995, precedes her; a paver on the Keating Hall steps bears Robinson's name.

McAleese, a lifelong Roman Catholic, was born in Belfast in 1951, making her the first Irish president born in Northern Ireland.

Brought up in Catholic primary and secondary school, she studied law at Queen's University at Belfast and Trinity College Dublin before joining the bar in both Ireland and Northern Ireland and becoming the Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College. Incidentally, she followed Robinson into this position as well.

Apart from her academic and legal pursuits, McAleese had a career in journalism, working at RTÉ, Ireland's national radio station, for several years before entering politics. From 1987 to 2004, she was a member of Fianna Fáil, Ireland's center-right-wing party, before going independent for her reelection in 2004.

As a public official, McAleese served in numerous positions, including a delegate for the Catholic Church to 1984's New Ireland Forum, a Catholic delegate to the Northern Ireland Commission on Contentious Parades in 1996 and attending 1995's White House Conference on Trade and Investment in Ireland; this last position led to a place at the next year's Pittsburgh Conference, which discussed the same matters.

Additionally, before her election, McAleese served as director of Channel Four Television (a British public TV station), Northern Ireland Electricity and the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust, in addition to being a member of the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas at its founding.

McAleese, whose political positions include an opposition to abortion and divorce, has been married since 1976 to Martin McAleese, with whom she has three adult children.

Since her election, McAleese has joined the Council of Women World Leaders, which is an association of current and former female presidents and prime ministers and been largely concerned with "building bridges" and making connections in her presidency.

In particular, she has reached out to her homeland of Northern Ireland, regularly making visits to the country and welcoming Northern Irish delegates to Áras an Uachtaráin, the Irish presidential residence. In all cases, she has been working to improve relations between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

In May 2005, McAleese spoke at Villanova University's commencement ceremony, and at the University of Notre Dame the following year. She is now the longest-serving elected female head of state, following the retirement of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga in November 2005.

Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University, in a University press release, said that he is "deeply honored" that President McAleese will be speaking at commencement.

"In her leadership, integrity and scholarship, President McAleese is the model to which our graduates should aspire," he said. "We look forward to bringing her into the Fordham family."