In the middle of an ecumenical service commemorating the Rising of 1798 news came through here yesterday of the "Real IRA's" ceasefire. In a dramatic cliff top setting near Bondi, the President, Mrs McAleese, was honouring the memory of the United Irishmen at the world's largest 1798 monument when she heard of the statement. The monument is dedicated to "all who dared and suffered in 1798", and it contains the remains of the transported Wicklow rebel, Michael Dwyer, and his wife.
At the service in Waverley Cemetery Mrs McAleese was praised before the crowd by Bishop David Cremin. "You are being admired immensely by all republicans," he said. "And by people who are not yet republicans." She said later: "It seemed a particularly appropriate place to have received that news calling to memory the men of 1798 whose aspirations for Ireland, I think, hope and pray, are about to be realised in this generation and the next."
The development marked an upbeat ending to the final days of Mrs McAleese's state visit after an 11-day, 4,000-mile trip around the continent, during which she became the first Irish President to address both houses of Australia's oldest parliament, came face to face with Aboriginal culture and received a great reception at Sydney Opera House.
But events back in Ireland dominated proceedings. She addressed a joint sitting of the New South Wales Parliament and, in contrast to a low-key performance in Canberra the previous day, swapped yarns, laughter and applause with MPs. Soon her wide-ranging speech came to the peace process. She said the "so-called Real IRA's" statement would come as small consolation for those who had died in Omagh, but it was an important building block on the path to peace. "We pray this is truly the dawning of the end. And it is the death-throes of violence, which is what Omagh and the deaths of the Quinn children were about; the final death-throes of a culture of conflict," she said.
In her first real brush with the first Australians, the President was given an authentic welcoming dance when she visited the National Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Sydney's Darling Harbour. One of the dancers, Goomblar Wylo, from north Queensland, who was covered in traditional ochre body-paint, kissed her hand. "Aboriginal people had a lot of dealings with the Irish people in the early days and we always got on," he said.
Last night's reception at the Sydney Opera House was one of the high points of the tour with rousing songs, an enthusiastic crowd and a relaxed President. When she arrived a man called out "We love you Mary" to which she shot back in an instant, to the delight of the guests, "I love you too, whoever you are". She used the occasion to again pay tribute to the "remarkable courage" of those Irish people, who might have wished to return home but because of children now realise going back is no longer an option. "Inside their hearts there's a conflict, they live faraway from home and yet they live close to home, they love Ireland yet they are bound to Australia."
Late last night she flew with her entourage to Brisbane for today's final engagements of the Australian tour. Despite arriving in the middle of the federal election campaign, the President has been well received on her whistle-stop visits to parliaments, dinners and Celtic clubs.