Her home in the village of Rostrevor, Co Down, was a little too far away, so President-elect McAleese left for her inauguration from a Co Dublin hotel. The Garda presence at the gates suggested something was up but it was the antique Rolls-Royce in the car-park that really gave the game away.
There were several other indications that an extra special VIP was about to depart from the Portmarnock Hotel yesterday morning. Relaxing in the foyer, several uniformed Army officers prepared for the day's activities with generous rations of coffee and mountains of buttered toast. Beefy plainclothes detectives wandered around eyeballing potential troublemakers. Mobile phones chimed relentlessly.
The hotel manager, Mr Shane Cookman, was pacing anxiously around the reception area giving last-minute directions to staff when he was asked to spill the beans on his important guest.
He didn't normally talk about hotel patrons, but President McAleese was, he confided to The Irish Times, a lovely lady. "She will be remembered and honoured by all the staff of the hotel," he added. The presidential driver and one of her three bodyguards, Garda Gerry Flynn, looked surprisingly relaxed.
"I'm delighted to be driving the President," he said. The fuss created by the cavalcade wouldn't distract him. "I take my job very seriously," he added.
Outside, the gleaming navy Rolls-Royce was being admired by rapidly increasing numbers of onlookers. "It's so old it's like Chitty Chitty Bangbang," one said of the 1948 vehicle.
Another man, Mr Gerard Byrne, had come from Raheny with his son, Gerard jnr, to check out the car. Mr Byrne had been a van boy when President Childers used to get his groceries delivered from Smyths on St Stephen's Green. He had watched Mr Childers's funeral cortege from "up a tree". "Today is another presidential moment," he said as Mrs McAleese's three children left for Dublin Castle.
Waiting patiently outside to experience his very first presidential moment was P.J. Reid (8). Clutching a bunch of red carnations, he said that he wanted to give them to Mrs McAleese because she was "a very nice lady".
At exactly 20 minutes past 11, the soon-to-be-President materialised. She chatted to hotel staff, smiled at delighted guests and accepted P.J.'s blooms.
Next was the walk down a hastily arranged red carpet to where the Defence Force motorcycle escort was waiting. Capt Tim O'Connell officially handed over the escort while the presidential salute was played.
A cheer erupted from the noisy crowd of children, toddlers and adults as the President-elect got into the car. The cheers could still be heard after the car sped away in the direction of Dublin Castle.