When Mrs Mary Robinson took her oath to serve as President of Ireland seven years ago, few would have predicted the impact she was to make upon a constrained and largely ceremonial office or the high place which she would come to hold in public esteem. Political scientists will argue whether there is substance to the Presidency - it has been said that it is more about being than about doing. But whether or not Mrs Robinson's tenure effected any substantial change in the office, it created the expectation of a new style and a new relationship with the people. This morning her successor, Mrs Mary McAleese, takes up the difficult challenge presented by that expectation.
Mrs Robinson's personal projection was fresh and new in Irish public life. But there was more to her success than a persona which was sympathique. She was, in a sense, fortunate in her timing. In the years of her Presidency many institutions found themselves in crisis. Scandals gathered in the corridors of power and in the churches. She seemed to present a counterpoint to that which was dubious and venal in public life. Mrs McAleese has a difficult act to follow. She is expected to maintain the dynamic which Mrs Robinson brought to the office. Yet if she is seen to echo her in sentiment or in approach she may be open to reproach as merely imitating her predecessor.
But even before taking up office Mrs McAleese has already begun to project her own approach and her own strength of character. Her brief appearance on The Late Late Show was appropriate and excellently handled, combining dignity with an absence of pretentiousness. Her request that dress code for the inauguration should be informal strikes a modern and populist chord, redolent of Mr Tony Blair's breath-of-fresh-air approach at Downing Street. And there may be other grace-notes of her Presidency in her decision to bring groups of children to Dublin Castle as well as her invitation to a group representing many strands of Irish life - a unionist, an islander, a nurse, a garda, a journalist, a Down's Syndrome person and so on.
She has also shown a combination of political acumen and well-judged sensitivity in her handling of the poppy issue. To have responded hastily to the suggestion that she should wear a poppy on inauguration day would have left her in a no-win situation. By declining to wear any symbols but by attending at the Remembrance Day service she defused the poppy question while making manifest her respect for the Irishmen of all traditions who sacrificed their lives in the great world confrontations.
The auguries are that the McAleese Presidency will be distinctive in its warmth and in its capacity to connect to ordinary people with differing life experiences. There should be no doubt that Mrs McAleese will throw herself energetically into the role, which was described by Mr Derek Nally, as the "head of civil - as distinct from political - society". Where she will face her severest challenges will be on the great national issue - the divisions between Orange and Green, the age-old quarrel between Irishmen of differing faiths and national identities. We face into a period of great change, with critical issues to be resolved North and South. And while the President has no direct or executive role in these processes there should be no underestimation of the importance of symbolism and leadership. Coming as she does from one tradition in the North, the heaviest responsibilities will rest on Mary McAleese to reflect an Ireland which is generous, tolerant and inclusive. Yet the same factors which present her with this challenge may also afford her the opportunity to be not just a good President but perhaps even a great one.