President praises 'faithful' English

President Mary McAleese has reminded people that the England rugby team "remained famously faithful to Dublin throughout the Troubles".

Speaking in advance of the Ireland-England rugby game in Croke Park tomorrow, which she will attend, she also said that opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby while Lansdowne Road is being renovated "was what good neighbours do".

Mrs McAleese made her remarks in the inaugural St Brigid's Day lecture at Derryvogie parish hall in Belfast last night.

"For 10 years now Áras an Uachtaráin has been the only place on the island of Ireland to offer an official commemoration of that major history-changing episode, the battle of the Boyne, and to offer it jointly to both Williamite and Jacobite traditions," she said.

She said that tomorrow "the English rugby team which stayed famously faithful to Dublin throughout the Troubles will line out in Croke Park, heartland of the GAA but now a temporary refuge for soccer and rugby while they await the renovation of Landsdowne. That is what good neighbours do.

"Haven't Harlequins rugby club [which she visited yesterday afternoon] been showing similar good neighbourliness to St Bride's GAA for some time now?

"Big steps, small steps, edging us closer to triumph over our island's long history of adversity and enmity and bringing us closer to the friendships we could have had and should have had, to the reborn opportunities we once missed and wasted, to the mutual trust that has reluctantly begun to emerge from winter's hard frost," she said.

Mrs McAleese observed that "here in Northern Ireland, these days and weeks of early spring are dominated by a clear, well-constructed plan for a new future to be characterised by concord rather than conflict."

She continued: "The IRA's ending of its armed campaign and Sinn Féin's endorsement of policing and the rule of law have cleared the way for a new paradigm of partnership-based devolution which will enjoy considerable encouragement and support from both the Dublin and Westminster governments, the European Union, the United States and the many nations who have actively willed the peace process on to success.

"The Irish and British governments are enjoying the best relationship ever experienced in the history of these islands."