The writer Anthony Cronin has been elected to the office of saoi in Aosdána, the organisation which honours Irish artists. (In ancient Ireland a saoi was the head of a monastic or poetic school.)
The President, Mrs McAleese, who presided at a ceremony in the offices of the Arts Council in Dublin yesterday, said it was appropriate that Mr Cronin should receive Aosdána's highest accolade, symbolised by the presentation of a gold Torc.
Once elected by Aosdána members to the office of saoi, artists generally hold the position until death. There may be only five saoithe at any one time. The other saoithe are: the painter Louis Le Brocquy, the writer Benedict Kiely and the poet Seamus Heaney. A fifth saoi has yet to be elected.
At present, membership of Aosdána, which is attained through a process of peer nomination and election, stands at 193.
In a warm tribute to Mr Cronin's work as a writer, teacher, critic and cultural commentator, Mrs McAleese said he offered "an understanding of modern Ireland's embodiment of the human condition in all its absurdity and vivacity".
Poets, she continued, were often the "unacknowledged legislators of the world".
The President also praised Aosdána's practice of granting to many of its members the cnuas, a yearly stipend of €11,070 designed to allow artists to concentrate solely on creative work.
Born in 1928, Anthony Cronin has published nine books of poetry, two novels, three collections of essays and acclaimed biographies of Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien.
Dead as Doornails, his memoir of 1950s literary life in Dublin and London published in 1976, was singled out by President McAleese as "a clear-eyed and astringent" commentary on artistic achievement in an inhospitable climate.
In the 1950s, Mr Cronin was associate editor of The Bell, the renowned literary journal co-founded by Seán Ó Faoláin.
He also wrote a column for The Irish Times for many years.
Addressing a large gathering of fellow Aosdána members, including the writer Ulick O'Connor, the playwright Gerard Mannix Flynn and the film-maker Louis Marcus, Mr Cronin said he was deeply gratified by the Torc award.
Members of Aosdána and other artists, he said, were among a minority which still understood the notion of a life's work as a vocation.