Blair's prayers? In November the "unabashed nationalist" Mary McAleese was elected Irish President. Her main role may well be to convince southern voters that partition is inevitable. David Coen explains McAleese easily defeated the [moderate conservative] Fine Gael candidate and great niece of Michael Collins, Mary Bannotti, who came in with 29%. The "left" candidate Adi Roche, supported by Labour, Democratic Left and the Greens, dropped from being a front-runner to a poor 7% of the vote on a turnout less than 50%, beaten even by singer Rosemary Scallon (aka Dana), on 13%.
McAleese is almost universally hated by the Dublin media - her arrival at her first press conference was greeted by hostile silence, very different from the cheers which welcomed the election of her predecessor, Mary Robinson.
McAleese is disliked because of her traditionalist attitudes - she is anti abortion and close to the church hierarchy. The day after her victory, the Catholic primate said the result showed that Ireland was not a "post-Catholic society" , as one Labour Party front bencher had called it. Although the office of president is largely ceremonial, Catholic traditionalists see McAleese as a possible antidote to the liberalism of Mary Robinson.