Factfile
Age: 46
Occupation: Dentist
Why in the news?: Has just succeeded to the position vacated by Nicholas Robinson.
Ploughing the presidential campaign trail, Martin McAleese did not have to contend with a barrage of controversial questions but one the retiring Northerner has been asked is, "Who are you?".
His reply, "the husband", betrayed just the slightest trace of irony and sums up the role he seems destined to adopt over the next seven years.
Martin McAleese is the new Nick Robinson and certain similarities can be drawn with that other man who was forced to carve a career out of walking three steps behind their respective spouses.
They are both quiet-spoken professional men, bearded Robinson a lawyer, bespectacled McAleese a dentist. Mr Robinson gave up his work in the Irish Centre of European Law on Mary Robinson's election and Mr McAleese is currently in the North extricating himself from his day-to-day working commitments in Bessbrook and Crossmaglen.
Perhaps most spookily, they are both married to women called Mary who were both Reid Professors of Law in Trinity College and who both became President. So as he contemplates his life over the next seven years Martin McAleese could do worse than give Nick Robinson a call.
What is more likely, though, is that the reputedly close-knit couple will work through this particular adjustment in the same clear-headed way they have dealt with a myriad of changes that have occurred during the course of their relationship and their lives.
Martin McAleese was born in the Albert Bridge area of east Belfast. In August 1971 his family were burnt out of their home - a trauma also experienced by his wife's family - and the McAleeses moved to Ardmore in Belfast, where they lived until the death of his mother in 1981.
In a rare interview recently media-shy McAleese spoke of how he made a conscious decision not to become bitter despite this tragic episode:
"If you show any kind of bitterness, ultimately it turns inward and you are the one that ultimately loses, so you just have to accept it, go on and hope that it doesn't happen to anyone else. You can look back with regret but never with bitterness, we've never felt bitter," he said.
He met Mary Leneghan, the future Mary McAleese, at a schools debating competition when he attended the fairly regimented St Mary's Christian Brothers' School in Belfast. An invitation to her 18th birthday party followed. "I went along with an open mind," he has said. "When you are 18 you don't go anywhere with a fixed objective in mind, more a kind of curiosity".
He graduated in physics from Queen's University, Belfast, in 1972 (where he renewed his acquaintance with Mary Leneghan) and worked as a financial controller of a major company in Dublin.
The couple married and at the age of 30 Mr McAleese decided to go back to college to study dentistry for 4 1/2 years, during which time he was totally dependent on his wife's income.
IN 1987 he bought into a low-profile dental practice in Bessbrook, Co Armagh, and became a partner of the incumbent dentist, Dr Des Casey. A patient of Mr Casey, the Ulster Unionist councillor Mr Danny Kennedy, said that Mr McAleese was "highly regarded" in the community.
"I know him as a very quiet, efficient and hardworking person who is by reputation a very good dentist," he said. He was also, according to Mr Kennedy, a very good businessman. His decision to open a second practice in Crossmaglen is perhaps the best illustration of this. Both practices are thriving.
A neighbour in the McAleese home village of Rostrevor describes Martin McAleese as "a very friendly person". "He and Mary are a very, very close couple and Martin has always been extremely supportive of her," he says.
The GAA fan and former captain of the minor Antrim football team - his career was cut short by a knee injury - is "big into fitness", he says, and was often seen jogging around the highways and byways of Rostrevor.
The McAleeses and their three children are regulars at the AllIreland final, despite the fact that their attendance this year as part of Mary McAleese's campaign schedule was viewed as a cynical vote-getter by some. Tickets for next year's final will be easier to find, Martin McAleese has quipped.
"He is quite a useful golfer and likes hill walking," said an old university pal, Liam Murphy. "He is a very down-to-earth fellow, unassuming. He will definitely carve out a niche for himself over the next seven years."
John Mulholland, a schoolfriend now a barrister in Dublin, agreed: "He will not be the type to play golf for the duration of Mary's term in office. He is extremely well read and will be interested and involved in anything Mary is doing as President."
In an interview some years ago Mrs McAleese articulated the secret of their success: "Martin is serious and quiet with a mischievous sense of humour. And he's a very calm person, whereas I'm a bit fiery. We're a very good match".
Martin McAleese has already intimated that it is this bond that will inevitably see the couple through the next seven years: "I think it will be as it has always has been - that I will be a friend as well as a husband. I can't see our own relationship changing because that has been based on trust and communication".
And whatever happens, he can always call Nick.