The President, Mrs Robinson, fulfilled her final public engagement in her native county of Mayo on Saturday night when she attended Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann, held this year in her home town of Ballina. At a reception to mark the event she noted that it was fitting that she should revisit the town in which she had launched her presidential campaign in 1990.
The opening of the fleadh also coincided with a call for an increase in Teilifis na Gaeilge's broadcast coverage so that the station could be received throughout Ireland.
The 1997 Fleadh Cheoil, the 46th, drew together traditional musicians from all over Ireland for a weekend of competition, playing and general merriment. Ballina people, including the President, expressed the hope that it would be one of two All-Irelands to come to Mayo this year.
The organisers estimated that 4,000 musicians and dancers competed, while a further 6,000 played in the town's bars, at ceilithe and on the streets.
As well as visitors from all over Ireland and emigrants returning from America and England, the event was attended by people from countries such as France and Denmark.
The extent to which traditional music and dancing are back in vogue following Riverdance was evident in the large number of children performing in groups all over the town and in the large number of bodhrans being sold on the Main Street.
Aside from the competitions, concerts and ceilithe, a great deal of activity took place in the pubs of Ballina. Every pub displayed a "Musicians Welcome" sign and the musicians duly obliged with fiddlers, uilleann pipers, accordion players, flautists, banjo players and guitarists entertaining punters well into the night.
The fleadh concluded last night with a fireworks display.
The call for countrywide reception of Teilifis na Gaeilge was made by the president of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (CCE), Mr Clement Mac Suibhne, when he opened the fleadh. He said the service was popular where it was received and that it should now be available all over the State.
As part of Scoil Eigse, he had visited Irish-speaking areas in Co Mayo during last week, but had found that native speakers were disappointed that they could not receive the Irish-language television station.
The director-general of CCE, Senator Labhras O Murchu, said that it would be a further sign of Ireland's cultural and artistic maturity when due recognition was given to our native traditions.
"For too many years, elements such as traditional music, song and dance were, at best, peripheral in many areas, such as education, tourism and funding. It will require a radical and generous reappraisal of policy-making to ensure that the magnificent potential which exists in our native artforms has the necessary resources for its development", he said.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Tom Moffatt, described the fleadh as a festival of culture unsurpassed anywhere in the world.