Meeting the President

We were delighted to be invited as guests of the Irish Consul in Boston to a private reception with President Mary McAleese and Dr Martin McAleese at the Fairmount Copley Plaza Hotel last week. Here Marguerite is standing on the red carpet about to enter the really cool hotel.

To the left is the band which played during the reception. It was remarkably like our wedding actually, with Fiddly Dee music going on, good folks walking around with au dourves, wine and beer and a wonderful lady giving a great speech.

President McAleese was great. There was no reading from notes here folks as she delivered an impressive speech which was sprinkled with some well timed jokes. She spoke about Ireland, America, Immigration, Sport, Peace, Irish Craic, Culture, Music and International Relations.

Here are some of the Irish Dancers who performed for the President, very good they were too! It's hard to think of anyone being as happy as the wee girl on the extreme right here, she had this mad smile the whole way through her dancing, no doubt she will have great memories of this evening.

It was all 'speaking up sleeves' and all that malarky with the Secret Service all over the show. So when Jude would make a move to get his camera this girl on the left, who may or may not have been in the film Charlies Angels, stared at him as if he was about to pull out a rocket launcher or something mad like that.

Below is a great pic of Marguerite and Jude meeting President Mary McAleese and Dr Martin McAleese. As soon as the President heard us she said it was wonderful to hear our accents. Then Marguerite proceeded to tell the President that they had 5 things in common. When President McAleese asked Marguerite what the 5 things were, this was the response: 1. They both spent their early years in North Belfast. 2. They both went to School on the Falls Road. 3. They both graduated from Queens University. 4. They both work for Ireland/N Ireland. 5. They are both in Boston right now!!!! Ehhh......the last one is a bit mad I know, but you gotta hand it to Marguerite because, although that's a little on the obvious side, it's technically correct all the same. Wha?

Ok, let's be honest here, the opportunity to meet the President was bigtime but getting a pic for the blog was also bigtime. The secret service was not playing ball with impromtu photo shoots, so a cunning plan had to be hatched. This involved planting our mate Robert in a good spot, waiting our moment (after chatting to President/Dr McAleese) before elbowing the secret service dudes out of the way and nailing the pic. It was like something out of a James Bond movie, but this was for real and only a few seconds of opportunity were available. So we left poor Robert trembling with fear with the words of Eminem ringing in his ears (You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime). To Robert's credit his trembling finger nailed the shot. Folks we were there to get our mugs in a pic with the President and no amount of secret service personnel was going to prevent it. The blog is far more important than any national security priorities they may have had. It's not every day you get to meet your President so Jude and Marguerite, just like the wee Irish dancer, will have some great memories of this wonderful occasion.