McAleese should not wear poppy at inauguration, Dempsey says

The President-elect, Mrs Mary McAleese, should not wear a poppy on her inauguration day, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said last night.

Mr Dempsey, who was Mrs McAleese's director of elections, was responding to a call from the Royal British Legion in Ireland for the President-elect to wear a poppy when she is officially sworn in next Tuesday, November 11th - Armistice Day.

Mrs McAleese had said at the weekend that she would consider the idea. But Mr Dempsey said last night that in his view the President should not wear symbols of any kind.

"If she wears the poppy she can legitimately be asked at a later stage, next Easter, to wear the Easter lily," he said on RTE television's Ques- tions and Answers.

"These types of symbols have particular meanings in different places . . . and it's my clear understanding that nationalists in Northern Ireland would regard the wearing of the poppy, and do regard the wearing of the poppy, as a similar symbol to the sash that the Orangemen wear.

"It was used for so many years to get a message across to the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. That's my understanding of the situation," he added.

Mr Dempsey said that as the inauguration was taking place on Armistice Day it would be fitting if Mrs McAleese made some reference to that in her speech because very many Irish people - a greater number from the Republic than the North - had died in the two world wars.

Calling on Mrs McAleese to wear a poppy at the inauguration ceremony, the administrator of the Royal British Legion in Ireland, Major Hume Grogan, had said earlier last night that the exservice community would "appreciate the gesture very much."

He said in an interview on RTE television: "We have for such a long time been ignored officially by the Government, over a considerable number of years. I do think there can be a problem for the President, because I believe the President is not meant to wear any emblem other the shamrock."

Mr Geoff Medcalf, a member of the RAF coastal command during the second World War, said some recognition of the role Irishmen played in both wars was at last emerging.

"You will always get a certain section of the public who will perhaps call us traitors because we fought for another power. But I think in general we're accepted now as defending what we thought at the time anyway, and I still think it, was against a very evil man by the name of Mister Hitler."

Asked last Saturday if she would wear a poppy at her inauguration, Mrs McAleese said it was a very interesting idea which she would carefully consider.