BIOGRAPHY: First Citizen Mary McAleese and the Irish PresidencyBy Patsy McGarry The O'Brien Press, 320pp. €29.99 - WHEN WRITING history one has the benefit of a range of documentation, including material not in the public domain, as well as the opportunity to view events with hindsight. When dealing with the present one has a knowledge of someone in the news from fleeting references in the media and sound-bites from speeches, causing one to form opinions which incorporate both misinterpretation and misinformation.
Biography sets down the established information, marshalling what is documented in the public domain and weaving it into a narrative, making it a permanent record. Yet writing an account of the Presidency of Mary McAleese is like giving a critique of an aria before the singer has hit the top note. This is the biography of a woman who is still holding the first office of the land, who in her late 50s is still in her prime, whose past achievements indicate she has the potential to keep excelling and innovating in the coming decades. In recent weeks, the President has noted that for her final years in office Ireland will be a changed place, with economic turmoil touching each of her citizens. Having read her story, it is clear she has the capacity to be a guide through this turbulent time, to articulate a new sense of identity for the Irish that redefines us less as citizens of an economy and more as citizens of a nation.
This is not the first biography of the President yet veteran journalist Patsy McGarry is to be commended for collecting a wealth of interviews in order to put the record straight on many events in the life of Mary McAleese. Many readers will recall the fraught and often maligned Presidential campaign of 1997 but it is made clear in this book that it was not the first time Mary McAleese encountered the most appalling victimisation and personal vilification.
She had experienced intolerable bigotry, not alone as a child in the Ardoyne in Belfast, when she and her family were forced to leave their home because of sectarian violence, but also while she worked for RTE, where she was sidelined and derided by her fellow workers. Later still, following her role as spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops at the New Ireland Forum, she was suspended from the NUJ, but the most sinister event was when descriptions of her as "our Provo lady" entered the public domain and she received death threats. She successfully sued the Sunday Independent over this, and was given one of the highest awards ever given in a libel action at that time. Later, a case she took against the Belfast Magazine for similar allegations led to that publication's demise. Throughout her life she persevered in keeping her own sense of identity, her own moral compass and by so doing has overcome adversity that would have broken a lesser individual.
This book clearly shows us the exceptional woman, who deserves her position as first citizen. Events in her own life have meant that she herself has been an outsider and has a unique understanding of the nuances of a divided nation. Though she has been accused of being "a tribal bombshell", on the contrary Mary McAleese has proven with her fine intellect, serenity of personality, humanity and spirituality that she has the capacity to endure, even when she has made errors of judgement, to continue to be a cohesive force in her own country as well as on the international stage.
Patsy McGarry has written in a comprehensive and immediate way the accounts of many people without paraphrasing, thus allowing the voice of the President and those close to her to be ever present. It must be remembered however that the interviews in this book were not given at the time of actual events, but later, when the interviewees were fully aware they were discussing someone who was now the first citizen, and therefore for the historians of the future they are, essentially, tainted sources.
In 1997, Mary McAleese emerged as the surprise candidate selected by Fianna Fáil to run for President. It is interesting to discover how she came to be chosen: ultimately it was her skill as a communicator and her ability to touch seasoned politicians with her aspirations for her Presidency that won her the nomination. In recent years, her ability to do the job has won her admiration from her former detractors. A rank outsider, her own force of personality, ability and work ethic brought her to where she is today, proving her an inspirational woman of courage and determination in adversity.
This book details how President McAleese has fulfilled the agenda she set for herself 11 years ago, at the outset of an uneasy peace that had settled on the six counties: to bridge the divide between North and South. During her Presidency she grew in stature as she made continual visits to Northern Ireland against a background of understandable animosity. Her successes, along with those of her husband, Martin, in their bid to fuse divided communities on the island of Ireland, are detailed in this book.
Patsy McGarry has chosen in First Citizen to look at the Presidency as well as the current President. He begins with a brief description of the presidents that have preceded Mary McAleese and concludes with a description of Áras an Uachtaráin and an account of the President's state visit to Germany. While informative, these inclusions are at odds with the main purpose of the book, which is to place President MacAleese at centre stage, where she belongs.
THIS PUBLICATION WILL SHARE THE bookstore shelves in coming weeks with the lives of actresses and singers whose fleeting celebrity is fostered by the tabloid media and whose publicists work tirelessly to create the impression their life stories are worth reading. Mary McAleese's life story, which fits easily into separate chapters, as she moved through distinct phases in her life, is a truly inspirational read. I have studied the lives of countless women from Ireland's past who have worked for the good of Ireland and her people, politically, socially and economically. Mary McAleese, guided by the principals of right and wrong, moral and immoral; of social justice and civil rights, now joins their ranks.
Sinéad McCoole is curator/keeper of the Jackie Clarke Library and Archives, Ballina, Co Mayo. Her most recent publications are the hand-printed limited edition of essays Sixty Years of the Cuala Press and Molly Gill: From Cuala Girl to Revolutionary Woman (Wild Apple Press, Maryland)