The seeds of Mary McAleese's devastatingly successful presidential campaign were sown, inauspiciously, four years ago at the wedding of her friend, Harry Casey, in Navan. Mary McAleese was invited by the groom, a close friend for many years, to make a short address.
Last March, within days of Mary Robinson declaring her intention to vacate Aras an Uachtarain, an avalanche of letters had arrived at Harry Casey's home from those guests, suggesting that Mrs McAleese be asked to run. Mr Casey was to become a linchpin in the early stages of her campaign and an invaluable asset in the first round of introductions to Fianna Fail TDs. He was not involved with Fianna Fail but had been Mrs McAleese's election agent when she contested Dublin South East in the 1987 general election.
They became friends in 1982 when he, a teacher at St Patrick's Classical School in Navan, met her as she was visiting families from Belfast who had moved to the area and whose children might be experiencing tension settling into their new schools.
Mrs McAleese was living with her husband, Martin, and first child, Emma, in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath and used visit the children from the North. The McAleeses and Mr Casey would later holiday together.
She also enjoys a warm friendship with his two brothers, Sean and Seamus, both of whom are priests in Athlone.
On receipt of urgings from friends that she consider the vacancy for First Citizen, Mr Casey rang Mrs McAleese at home in Rostrevor, Co Down, and put these promptings to her.
"She said, `What?' and there was this silence", he recalls.
The next day he drove to Rostrevor and she agreed to think about it. Convinced that she could succeed, he then wrote to all Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrats ail deputies, TDs asking them to press her case. He invited other friends to do likewise.
Fianna Fail was Mrs McAleese's natural political home, and a small coterie of its TDs formed the core of her support within the party. Two Cabinet Ministers - Ms Mary O'Rourke and Mr Dermot Ahern - were active in the campaign to secure her nomination while the chairman of the parliamentary party, Dr Rory O'Hanlon and the Wicklow TD, Mr Dick Roche, supported her cause.
Ms O'Rourke and Mrs McAleese had met in 1983, through the Fianna Fail Women's Committee.
However, when they met to discuss a presidential nomination, the chances of such a development were remote, since the SDLP leader, John Hume, had not declared his intention and Mrs McAleese would not press ahead if he allowed his name to go forward as an agreed candidate.
The Queen's University law lecturer also had meetings with Mr Dermot Ahern, with whom she is also very friendly, and Dr O'Hanlon. Besides admiring her considerable intellectual abilities, they shared her views on the major social questions.
Apart from a small number of discussions with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, Mrs McAleese's contacts with the party leader have been irregular. They met during the campaign and, Government sources say, get along "very well".
"She will get on all right with the Government. But she will be her own person. She sees herself as President of all the people. She is too smart for confrontation but neither Fianna Fail nor the PDs could ever expect any favours from her," one source said.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Noel Dempsey, says he learned, as her director of elections, that "her independence of mind" is one of her outstanding characteristics. He has "no doubt but she will stand over her constitutional position".
Outside party politics, Prof Patricia Casey has been a close friend and also joined in her celebrations on Friday. They enjoy a very close friendship, visiting each other regularly and staying over in each other's homes from time to time. Prof Casey first met Mrs McAleese on the Late Late Show in 1982 when they both defended the government's wording on the abortion amendment.
"She is much more spiritual than me. We share the same philosophy. We rate personal happiness and internal peace above all else, above material things", Prof Casey says.
Exactly who will become the new Bride Rosney to the eighth President remains a mystery to date. Those travelling closely with Mrs McAleese during her 7,600-mile canvass of the State say they do not believe she has given the matter any real thought.
Meanwhile, Prof Anthony Clare has "a terrible anxiety that some of the liberal wing are unforgiving and this defeat will not be taken well".
He fears the media will not be as fair to Mary McAleese as they were to her predecessor.