The President, Mrs McAleese, began her visit to Scotland, the first by a head of state since devolution, urging the Scots to play a positive role in the British-Irish Council. She repeatedly evoked the shared history of Northern Ireland and the mutual interest for the peace process to work.
The President spent the day in Edinburgh and Glasgow attending the usual round of civic receptions, honorary degrees and speeches a head of state is obliged to attend. What made this visit unusual was its recognition of Scotland's changed political status and how that may affect devolution and the peace process in the North.
In a speech last night marking the 400th anniversary of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, the President said: "Here, more than in any other part of this island, there exists a complex web which links you to both parts of Ireland."
She said that Scotland's experience of having Protestant and Catholic living side by side in the west of Scotland could help Northern Ireland find a new way of living. "You are the possessors of a resource, a pocket of experience and insight we need to share with you. Now, at last, we will be able to bring these into the light, to build on them and to craft a different kind of future.
"It is a happy coincidence that the development of the peace process should have come about at the same time as the coming of Scottish devolution. People are learning to live comfortably with change, to embrace it and to relish its potential.
"For too long those relationships [between Ireland and Britain] have been skewed by a level of distrust, fear and ignorance which masked the journeys we have shared, the galaxy of things we have in common, the deep friendships we have established over centuries."
Mrs McAleese began the day with a meeting with Scotland's First Minister, Mr Donald Dewar, who leads the administration in Edinburgh's new parliament. After a brief chat at Mr Dewar's official residence, Bute House, she went on a brief tour of the new National Museum of Scotland. It was designed to underline the theme of a shared history.
It perhaps was not helpful that the first quotation they passed in the museum was from the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland's first statement of independence. "For so long as 100 of us remain alive, we will never on any condition be brought under English Rule" it read, a sentiment at odds with the President's message of peace and co-operation.
There followed a reception at the Signet Library, the former home of Scotland's parliament until 1707, where Mrs McAleese spoke of her hopes for the British-Irish Council, at which the parliaments of Ireland, Britain, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man will be represented.
She then travelled to Glasgow, where she attended a civic reception hosted by the Lord Provost of the city, Mr Alex Mosson. Many of the guests were from the large Scots-Irish community in the west of Scotland, the descendants of 19th-century emigrants.
The President said: "There can be few other cities in the world where links with Ireland run as deep as they do here." She paid tribute to the "Irish people and people of Irish descent in the development of the west of Scotland".
She was particularly pleased that portraits of W.B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw hung in the offices of the Lord Provost.
She then received an honorary degree from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, where she also attended a dinner last night.
Mrs McAleese is receiving constant updates on the situation in Northern Ireland as she travels. She has impressed her Scottish audiences with her fluid speaking and optimism on the peace process. While Edinburgh and Dublin recognise this as a ceremonial and courtesy trip, they both hope it will help cement bonds which could prove vital in nurturing peace.
Today the President and her party, including her husband, Dr Martin McAleese, the Irish Ambassador to London, Mr Edward Barrington, and Mr Daniel Mulhall, the Irish Consul-General in Scotland, travel to Aberdeen, where she will inaugurate the new research centre for Irish/ Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. She flies to London this evening for the rest of her trip to Scotland and England.