The President, Mrs McAleese, is expected to attend the funeral service for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on April 9th, Government sources said last night, though a final decision has not yet been made.
The decision will be seen as a further deepening of relations between the Republic and Britain. In December 1999, the President had lunch with Queen Elizabeth II in Buckingham Palace.
Both the President and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, sent condolences in February to the queen mother following the death of her daughter, Princess Margaret.
The queen mother will be buried at Windsor Castle beside her husband, King George VI, who died 50 years ago, after a funeral ceremony on April 9th, Buckingham Palace announced.
The queen mother, whose life covered a century of tumultuous change for the world and the royal House of Windsor, died in her sleep on Saturday with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth, at her bedside.
Mrs McAleese said: "She had many admirers in Ireland who will mourn her passing. The queen mother will be sorely missed by her family and by the British nation and we offer them our sincerest sympathies."
Mr Ahern, in a message of condolence, said: "The queen mother had a personal grace and charm which endeared her not only to the citizens of Britain but also to many people here in Ireland."
Queen Elizabeth last night led members of the royal family in prayer and remembrance at the coffin of the queen mother.
Senior royals filed solemnly into the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park, London, for a brief private service. Prince Charles, said to be "absolutely devastated" by his grandmother's death, and his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, cut short a skiing holiday in the Swiss resort of Klosters to fly home.
In a break with protocol, the queen allowed Prince Charles, her heir, to travel on the same plane as his sons, something normally avoided by the royal family for security reasons.
The queen mother kept the royal family together through seven tempestuous decades - from the 1936 abdication crisis that propelled her shy husband onto the throne to Prince Charles's bitter divorce from Princess Diana in 1996.
Many schools in Britain will make special arrangements to enable pupils to watch the funeral on television, head-teachers said. Tributes poured in yesterday describing the queen mother as a figure of courage who had won a place in the hearts of millions around the world.