"It's harder and harder to get young people to join," the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland, Mr Michael Walker, told the President, Mrs McAleese. "There are so many leisure opportunities these days.".
The President was the first Irish head of State to visit the Freemasons' Hall in Molesworth Street, Dublin. She had accepted Mr Walker's invitation because she was interested in the Masonic museum's artefacts from 1798, which she was shown by the museum's very unmasonic curator, the youthful and feminine Ms Alexandra Ward. Women, of course, are not allowed to become Masons.
Masons were very prominent in 1798, Ms Ward told the President. Henry Joy McCracken was one, as was Henry Munroe who led the United Irishmen at the Battle of Ballynahinch. In Dublin Archibald Hamilton Rowan and Oliver Bond were in the order. Henry Grattan was proposed for membership but for some reason never joined.
In the early 1790s many lodges, encouraged by the American and French revolutions and the rise of the United Irishmen, had issued proclamations in favour of reforming the constitution. The Grand Lodge moved quickly to squash any embryonic political radicalism, emphasising its rule that "no private pique, no quarrels about nations, families, religion or politics must be brought within the doors of the Lodge".
None of that stopped the United men, just as it had not stopped George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and their French counterparts before them.
"Any Catholic Masons?" asked the President. Daniel O'Connell was one, and they have been joining in larger numbers in recent years, she was told.
At the end of the 20th century the Freemasons are identified more in the public mind with wielding behind-the-scenes influence in organisations such as the British police. Mrs McAleese asked what the Irish masonic view was of recent British moves to outlaw membership for police officers.
Mr Walker felt it was "highly discriminatory" to pick out the Masons for such treatment and suggested that if a case were taken to Strasbourg, any such law would be thrown out by the European Court.
As the President moved to a side room to meet fraternal members and their wives, Mr Walker issued a new invitation for her to honour them with a second visit on the 275th anniversary of the founding of Irish Freemasonry in the year 2000.