The start of the President, Mrs McAleese's, first official State visit was yesterday almost overshadowed by Australia's elections.
The President arrived in Perth on the first day of national campaigning, just 24 hours after the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, called a snap election six months ahead of schedule.
Visit officials said the impending October 3rd poll should not affect the President's 11-day whistle-stop tour of the continent but arrangements involving Mr Howard and other senior politicians may have to change. The knife-edge result of a state election in Tasmania has seen the President's visit drawn into an unseemly row between the caretaker premier and his apparent successor.
The island state's Labour leader, Mr Jim Bacon, claimed victory over the caretaker Liberal Premier, Mr Tony Rundle, saying he wanted to be sworn in in time for the official visit on Thursday.
Mr Rundle has refused to concede defeat, saying under the state's complex system of proportional representation he could still hold power, giving protocol officials a headache deciding just who should meet and greet Mrs McAleese.
However, day one of the visit went to plan after the party flew into Perth from Singapore and sampled the hospitality of the Irish Club of Western Australia.
The Premier of Australia's largest state, Mr Richard Court, congratulated President McAleese on her impeccable timing, arriving at the start of the campaign. But it was left to the Labour leader of WA's opposition, Dr Geoff Gallop, to score a major point when he said it was impossible to understand Australia's politics without referring to the ideas and passions of the Irish immigrants and their descendants.
"They were outsiders and they fought for democracy and most importantly they fought for the rights of minorities. This has helped enormously in shaping our nation as a genuinely pluralist democracy," he said.
The President spoke about the peace process and of the contribution the Irish had made to the state by discovering gold and driving cattle into the Kimberleys.
"I have never been here before but in a real way I am very specially at home," she said.
It is estimated that a third of Australians have Irish ancestry. The President's itinerary includes visits to historic penal sites, opening a university centre for Irish studies and meeting the descendants of orphans who were transported here during the Great Famine.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, the President said she wanted to reinforce the contribution the Irish had made to Australia and explain how Ireland was booming with net inward migration for the first time in 150 years.
"The important message in going to Australia and meeting with the huge group that is the Irish family is to create a whole new body of shared memories to hand on to the new generation and to keep those relationships fresh, vibrant and dynamic," she said.