Editing Mary McAleese (section)

===First term (1997–2004)===
[[File:President Bill Clinton meets with Irish President Mary McAleese.jpg|thumb|right|McAleese meets with US President [[Bill Clinton]] at [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] on 12 December 2000]]
{{Main|1997 Irish presidential election}}
In 1997, McAleese defeated former [[Taoiseach]] [[Albert Reynolds]] and former minister [[Michael O'Kennedy]] in an internal party election held to determine the [[Fianna Fáil]] nomination for the Irish presidency.

Her opponents in the [[1997 Irish presidential election|1997 presidential election]] were [[Mary Banotti]], nominated by [[Fine Gael]], [[Adi Roche]] nominated by the [[Labour Party (Ireland)|Labour Party]], [[Democratic Left (Ireland)|Democratic Left]] and the [[Green Party (Ireland)|Green Party]], and two candidates standing as [[Independent politician (Ireland)|Independents]] nominated by local authorities: [[Dana Rosemary Scallon]] and [[Derek Nally]]. McAleese won 45.2% of first preference votes. In the second and final count, McAleese was elected having obtained 55.6% of votes against Banotti. On 11 November 1997, she was inaugurated as the eighth President of Ireland. Within weeks of this, she made her first official overseas trip to [[Lebanon]].<ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1015/1224305838919.html "President revisits Lebanon on her final foreign trip in office"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111016212517/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1015/1224305838919.html |date=16 October 2011 }}, ''The Irish Times'', 15 October 2011.</ref>

McAleese described the theme of her presidency as "building bridges". The first individual born in Northern Ireland to become President of Ireland, President McAleese was a regular visitor to Northern Ireland throughout her presidency, where she was on the whole warmly welcomed by both communities, confounding critics who had believed she would be a divisive figure. People from Northern Ireland, indeed people from right across the nine-county Province of [[Ulster]], were regular and recurring visitors to [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] while she was president.<ref name="Honorary degree for Martin McAleese"/> She is also an admirer of [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth II]], whom she came to know when she was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of [[Queen's University of Belfast]]. In March 1998, President McAleese stated that she would officially celebrate the [[Twelfth of July]] as well as [[Saint Patrick's Day]], recognising the day's importance among [[Ulster]] [[Protestants]].

She also incurred some criticism from some of the [[Irish Catholic]] hierarchy by taking communion in a [[Church of Ireland]] ([[Anglican]]) Cathedral, in Dublin, on 7 December 1997, although 78 per cent of Irish people approved of her action in a following opinion poll. While Cardinal [[Desmond Connell]] called her action a "sham" and a "deception", [[Taoiseach]] [[Bertie Ahern]] said it was ironic that "the Church was condemning an act of reconciliation and bridge-building between the denominations".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/communionwithnon0000vand |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/communionwithnon0000vand/page/51 51]–53 |title=Communion with Non-Catholic Christians: Risks, Challenges, and Opportunities |publisher=Liturgical Press |isbn=9780814628959 |last1=Vanderwilt |first1=Jeffrey Thomas |year=2003 }}</ref>

In 1998, she met Cardinal [[Bernard Francis Law|Bernard Law]] of Boston on an official visit to the [[United States]]. In an interview in 2012, she said that Law told her he was "sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as President" and went on to insult a [[Minister of State (Ireland)|Minister of State]], who was accompanying McAleese. "His remarks were utterly inappropriate and unwelcome," she said. McAleese told the cardinal that she was the "President of Ireland and not just of Catholic Ireland". At this point, a heated argument ensued between the two, according to McAleese.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mcaleese-reveals-attack-by-disgraced-cardinal-3251159.html | work=Irish Independent | title=McAleese reveals 'attack' by disgraced cardinal | access-date=7 October 2012 | archive-date=7 October 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121007221606/http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mcaleese-reveals-attack-by-disgraced-cardinal-3251159.html | url-status=live }}</ref>