The brilliant career of Mary McAleese
While serving her second term as the eighth President of Ireland, Mary McAleese came to Portland in mid-December of 2008. She was here with her husband Martin and some bodyguards at Mount Calvary Cemetery. She brought official Irish dignity to the ceremonies. Along with her wit.
"As pelting sleet drove the dedication of the Oregon Famine memorial into a tent over Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery graves, President Mary McAleese smiled. Ireland had sent Portland its greatest gift --"the lousiest weather ever" --along with its other greatest gift: people who "no matter how bad the weather" gathered, celebrated and endured." Oregonian Dec. 14, 2008 By Julie Sullivan
Mary and Martin McAleese. December 2008 (but ot at Mt. Calvary) - Ireland’s first couple had been to Sacramento the day before arriving in Portland. There they met Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
WHAT MARY MC ALEESE HAS BEEN UP TO SINCE 2008
A lot.
She had three years left on her second term in Aras (the Irish White House) when she came to Portland. When she left office in December 2011 her approval rating among the Irish people was 92%.
Nowadays she’s got irons in a few fires. She’s the Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin. Has teaching ties with Notre Dame and the University of Glasgow. Heads an effort to integrate men and women who play Gaelic games under different umbrellas. Travels extensively to talk about the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement. And, of course, she’s got a podcast.
It’s called Changing Times – The Allenwood Conversations. She talks with Mary Kennedy fellow Irish celebrity and obviously a good friend. (Search for Mary McAleese wherever you get your podcasts.It SHOULD come up.)
Here’s the thing, though. If you’re interested in hearing Mary McAleese’s amazing coming-of-age-during-The-Troubles story, check out this interview she does with a guy named Ryan Turbidy.
She was the first of nine childen of Paddy Lenehan of Co. Roscommon and Clare McManus of Co. Antrim. Both were Catholic. She lived in Ardoyne; no section of Belfast saw more violence. Her father ran a pub on Falls Road until Loyalist paramilitaries blew up a car at its front door. There was a warning phoned in so no injuries but sectarian violence was everywhere. Two of her best friends growing up were murdered the night before her and Martin’s wedding in 1976.
Then there’s this incident. Told without a trace of bitterness. On December 8, 1970, four Loyalist paramilitaries showed up at her childhood home and opened fire with machine guns. “They shot up every room where the lights were on,” she tells Turbidy. No one was hurt because no one was home. The Protestant shooters didn’t count on the Leneghans being at Mass for the Feast of The Immaculate Conception.
Mary McAleese, Chencellor of Trinity College Dublin.
ADVICE TO AMERICA: TALK ABOUT YOUR KIDS
Mary McAleese has had a stormy relationship with the Catholic Church. She has long spoken out for every reform to the ways of the Church imaginable.Her academic and legal relations with people and groups who would like to see the Church leadership embrace change endure. This May, Notre Dame-affiliated Saint Mary’s College invited her as its commencement speaker. Her ties with Notre Dame go way back.
She was leading a forum at Notre Dame’s Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion in 2024 when she was asked ".. here in the U.S. we have had a rather tumultuous week. (Candidtate Trump had been shot at a few days before.) We are having a hard time finding a way to talk to each other across different viewpoints. You come from a country that has had similar challenges. Do you have any advice?
Here’s an edited version of her answer.
It strikes me that America is just on the edge of the toxic crater of fragmented relations and it's going to take people of great courage to say let's talk. And let's talk first about our kids, because this is what I'd always say when people of opposing views came to visit. I don't want to talk politics with you because that could lead to breakdown. Could we talk about our kids? Could we talk about the kind of future you want for them? How do you think we could get there? What kind of things do you think stop us from getting there? And how do you think our relationships could help to create the stepping stones for our children to that future? How can we, just through befriending one another, create those stepping stones that our children could safely walk on and show that, to quote Seamus Heaney, “a further shore is reachable from here.”
The Presidents of Ireland. L to R Mary McAleese (1997 - 2011) Catherine Connolly 2025 - ) Micheal Higgins (2011 - 2025) Mary Robinson (1990 - 1997).
SATURDAY – DECEMBER 13 – COME TO THE CROSS AT MT. CALVARY
There are no guarantees in life or weather around here, but it’s even money that the conditions at the Oregon Potato Famine Memorial (SW Skyline & West Burnside) will be better this Dec. 13 than they were in 2008. We’ll gather in the Mt. Calvary parking lot at Eleven A.M. Tim Birr and Rob Sullivan will play the bagpipes. Memories of Dedication Day will be summoned. Hot coffee and donuts will be served. The PHS Christmas Lunch will follow at Noon at Kells on SW Second. There WILL be prizes after lunch.
DECEMBERSHIP – BECOME A PROPER MEMBER OF THE PHS THIS MONTH
We'll keep this short. Why should you join the Portland Hibernian Society? To connect with what's Irish, for one reason. Besides this weekly newsletter, we offer monthly get togethers, special events (see you at The Cross Dec. 13) the best St. Patrick's Day Banquet in Portland and, most of all, good company. By joining, you'll make all this possible and help fund our charitable giving in 2026.