President's positive Irish message really takes off in Houston

It was a PR man's dream. The last question to the President of Ireland, Mrs McAleese, before this august gathering of professors and Houston bigwigs, we were told, was from a 10-year-old girl: "Do you like your job?" It was Thursday night at Rice University, the occasion of the "big" address. And the answer and the manner of it summed up this first official trip to Texas. The President beamed from ear to ear. "Lo-o-o-ove it," she told them with an enthusiasm that brought a massive cheer from the audience.

The message of Ireland's transformation, the stories of the confluence of economic boom and peace in the North, of hope for "the best of times still to come", made the job of President, the bearer of good tidings, the best of all possible jobs, she confessed.

At other times on this trip she spoke with passion of the challenge of popular education to discover and develop untapped seams of genius.

Take Seamus Heaney, she told the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle on Thursday. Had Queen's not opened its doors to this uncomfortable usurper he might have joined others, as he put it himself, "dozing their lives away against the flanks of milking cows".

Questions have ranged from "How Catholic is Catholic Ireland?" - pluralist with a big P, was the answer - to specifics about the structure of the Irish high-tech industry and how vulnerable it is to a US downturn. We're not sure but we don't think so.

Yesterday in the main square of Houston, in the shadow of giant glass skyscrapers and the sound of a lambeg drum, Mrs McAleese opened the city's International Festival, this year themed on Ireland and which has put the history of the country on the formal curriculum of 500,000 local children.

Earlier, at the 93 per cent Hispanic Lantrip Elementary School, hundreds of children had greeted the President with Tricolours and posters denoting scenes from Irish history.

Later the President visited NASA. She returns to Ireland today.