'You're made of tough stuff and we are so proud of you'

LAST WEEK kidnapped Goal worker Sharon Commins was wondering when she would get her next food-and-water ration. She could hardly have imagined a week later waiters would glide around her in Áras an Uachtaráin, carrying trays laden with champagne, canapes and wine.

The first pictures of Ms Commins after her release showed a tired and gaunt woman in a yellow headscarf, but yesterday she epitomised glamour with shiny blonde hair, an emerald green short dress and towering black platforms.

She had been invited to a reception at Áras an Uachtaráin by President Mary McAleese to mark her safe return on Monday night after more than three months in captivity in Darfur with her Ugandan colleague, Hilda Kawuki.

The 32-year-old from Clontarf looked nervous when she entered the reception room with the President and her husband Martin McAleese. Dozens of camera bulbs flashed as the aid worker was faced with a phalanx of photographers and broadcast journalists. Her parents, Agatha and Mark, her brothers Derek and Martin, and their partners, Ashling and Áine, stayed close to her.

About 30 guests attended the reception, including Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin; Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy; Department of Foreign Affairs secretary general David Cooney; Department of Justice secretary general Seán Aylward; Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lieut Gen Dermot Earley, and Irish-American philanthropist Chuck Feeney.

Her mother held her hand and squeezed it tightly as they posed for photographs. Dignitaries shook her hand, but the biggest hugs came from her Goal colleagues Jonathan Edgar and Gerry Carty, who nearly swept her off her feet.

Mrs McAleese told Ms Commins her release had lifted the spirits of the nation, after an outpouring of concern at her kidnap.

She compared the relief with that when Brian Keenan was released from captivity in Beirut.

The qualities and values that drove Ms Commins to become an aid worker were also the qualities that helped her to get through her ordeal, the President told her. “You’re made of tough stuff . . . and we are so proud of you and so proud of Hilda . . . What everybody wishes for you is a return to health, a return to healing, a return to the bosom of your family.”

Mrs McAleese paid tribute to Ms Commins’s “absolutely extraordinary family, their stoicism and their faith and their goodness and their serenity during what we know were agonising long days and long nights”.

She praised the work done by missionaries and non-governmental organisations abroad, and said people prayed for the speedy release of Fr Michael Sinnott, who is being held captive in the Philippines.

Ms Commins didn’t address the group or media, but passed on the message she had chosen her green dress to display her Irishness.