A few miles and a world away from Pretoria's grand state buildings, Ms Celia Larkin witnessed the extreme poverty that the new South Africa is struggling to cope with.
As Mr Ahern held political discussions with South Africa's President and Deputy President in the magnificent Presidential guest house and Union Buildings, Ms Larkin and a small entourage set off for the townships of Atteridgeville and Soweto to see how the majority of the urban black population still lives.
They drove through the rich suburbs around Pretoria and Johannesburg where substantial houses stand on up to an acre of manicured lawn.
Here, where the white people live surrounded by high walls and locked gates and signs warning would-be intruders of an "instant armed response", is for a very small minority of South Africa's population.
They drove into dusty Atteridgeville, where small two-roomed houses are clustered together for miles around. On the edges of this township (population: 500,000) are squalid shanty towns composed of corrugated iron huts with no water or other facilities.
Many of the young children at the St George Community crΦche come from these shanty towns. Their parents have no work or money, and cannot feed or clothe them. Staff from the crΦche go out on to the streets looking for these children, often malnourished and sick, and enrol them.
About 50 of them, aged three to six, put on a most enthusiastic traditional singing and dancing display for Ms Larkin yesterday. It was their first day back at school, and in a building upgraded with £11,500 of Ireland Aid money they sang and danced eagerly, most of them in tune, some even in step.
Ms Larkin picked up some of the little ones from time to time. They gave her flowers, she gave them applause. The chairman of the parish pastoral council, Mr Joseph Mamakobe Malatji, said it was an honour to have present someone from the country which had helped them. "You came to our rescue and we are very grateful for that", he said.
He explained that 90 per cent of the children came from impoverished squatter camp families. While many were malnourished and ill when they came, you could watch them flower over a very short period. They received three meals a day there, played, socialised, learned how to read, write, add and subtract.
Outside in the hot African summer sunshine, the yellow and white papal flag flew beside the flags of Ireland and South Africa. However, the papal writ does not run strongly here in all matters. An astonishing 40 per cent of the population aged 15 to 30 is estimated to be HIV-positive, according to Father Kieran Creagh, an Irish priest working in the parish.
Many young children are infected with the virus, some through being born to infected mothers but others as a result of a myth that circulates suggesting that if an infected man has sexual relations with a virgin, he will be freed of the virus. The result, he said was a number of young girls being infected as a result of being raped by infected men.
The principal of the crΦche, Ms Mary Ntshudina, presented Ms Larkin with a traditional handmade mug. Ms Larkin gave her and Father Creagh small wrapped gifts. Ms Larkin went on to visit several schools in Soweto before returning to Pretoria to join Mr Ahern for a reception in the garden of the Irish Ambassador's residence.