President to be feted in Dublin celebration

An invitation has been extended to mna agus fir na hEireann to come dance for the President, Mrs Robinson, at the GPO in Dublin on Saturday, September 6th. A big street party is being held there at 2 p.m. on that day to celebrate her Presidency.

Mrs Robinson leaves office on Friday, September 12th.

Music for the celebration will be provided by the Masamba drummers and Yemanja, to be followed later in the afternoon by Christy Moore.

The event is being organised by various marginalised groups, "people on the ground whose lives she (Mrs Robinson) enriched by making them feel important", as the compere for the day, Ms Doireann Ni Bhriain, put it at a press conference yesterday.

It will be the first time anyone has celebrated a President in Europe, said Ms Eileen Smith, a member of the organising committee, "and the first time people will go on the streets to say thank you".

Seven "tribute speeches" will be delivered before Mrs Robinson gives her farewell address. Addresses will be given by Sister Margaret MacCurtain, historian; Ms Inez McCormack of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions; Ms Christine Hanahoe of the northwest community groups; Mr Donal O'Malley of the National Youth Council; Ms Ellen Monghan, traveller and councillor; Mr Kieran Rose of the Gay and Lesbian Network, and the poet Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.

Ms Smith said Mrs Robinson had fulfilled her commitment on inclusiveness and had given "visibility and empowerment to the excluded". She predicted the September 6th event would be "extremely colourful" and that it would "move Ireland for her [Mrs Robinson] as she moved Ireland for us".

Sister MacCurtain spoke of the power of the moral responsibility Mrs Robinson had carried with her into office and of how she was one of the few public figures to confront power with truth. Ms Ni Dhomhnaill said that some great watershed had begun with the Robinson Presidency where women were concerned, and that `'she has been at the beginning and is the leader of all this".

She also said the President's concern with the diaspora had made Irish people of all the world stronger, and that her interest in the Irish language "has re-enfranchised the whole country".

Mr Kieran Rose spoke of gay people's sense of being "bereft" at the prospect of Mrs Robinson leaving office. Her role in "the emancipation of gay and lesbian people" had been fundamental. She had invited them to "the symbolic home of all the Irish people" at a time when homosexual acts were criminalised, and by so doing "sent a clear signal to political leaders".

Associating herself with the sentiments of previous speakers, Ms Ni Bhriain said of the President, "ta si molta agus me im thost" (she is praised even by my silence). She believed the September 6th event would be "very emotional for everybody and for us".

The President, Mrs Robinson, will pay a last official visit as Head of State to her home town, Ballina, Co Mayo, tomorrow.

She will attend the All-Ireland Fleadh there in the evening, after launching a new magazine, Ceide, in Ballycastle, Co Mayo, earlier in the day.

Mrs Robinson takes up her post as the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in mid-September.

Meanwhile, Ms Bride Rosney, adviser to President Robinson, has confirmed she will accompany Mrs Robinson to Geneva for a period of "less than a year". She said she would then return to Dublin.