Czechs give President a warm welcome

The day began with the sight of the Tricolour flying above a majestic, sunlit Prague Castle and the Irish national anthem echoing across the Vltava river. It ended with the two heads of state chatting over drinks in an "Irish" pub.

In the meantime, the Czech Republic's most prominent citizens turned out to hear the Irish President describe the glories of EU membership and to hear her firmly stated belief that the peace process will have a happy ending. At a press conference following a short meeting with President Vaclav Havel, Mrs McAleese remarked on his "deep and abiding" interest in Northern Ireland. "I told him - because I believe it to be true - that my intuition says that the strong will of the people for peace will promote and provoke the politicians to find enough trust to smooth over this last bump on the road to peace."

The question-and-answer session ended abruptly after just one question, addressed to President Havel. On a topic which preoccupies many Czechs, it described their humiliating fall from being "premier applicants for EU membership" to their current position as sixth of six, comparable to Ireland's position before accession, and asked what the Czech people could learn from Ireland's experience?

Mr Havel's response was terse. "It appears that patience, dedication, tenacity of progress are better than pride," he replied, in what was interpreted as a pointed reference to the unfruitful nationalist policies pursued by Czech governments. Upon which there was an immediate departure from the podium.

Later some 160 foreign policy experts, academics, diplomats and members of parliament arrived at the 17th-century Cernin Palace, the offices of the Foreign Ministry, to hear Mrs McAleese's 45-minute keynote address on "Europe - Widening the Family Circle".

According to Mr Jiri Sedivy, director of the Institute of International Relations, Ireland, "the synonym of success in terms of EU membership", was the model for all small nations seeking accession.

In a warmly received speech, Mrs McAleese compared the experiences of both countries. She said: "The people of both have been the victims of history, held hostage whether by the blunt instruments of ideological communism or elitist, self-righteous imperialism. They skewed and twisted the histories of our people; they damaged the lives our people lived. But nothing stays the same . . ."

She told the story of Ireland's poor beginnings when its biggest export was its own people; praised the vision of "unsung heroes" such as the former president, Dr Paddy Hillery, who spearheaded changes to the education system in the 1960s; and paid tribute to the social partners "who deserve extraordinary credit for today's success story".

Finally, addressing the fears that EU membership meant national identity "being dissolved like sugar in coffee", as Mr Sedivy put it, she said membership had "enhanced Irish people's perceptions of what it is to be Irish . . . There were many who feared that our small island nation would find its interests and its very identity overwhelmed . . . Those fears we now know were groundless".

And then to a glittering state dinner in the solemn, history-laden surroundings of the castle's throne hall, along with 60 guests, including the Prime Minister, to dine on "stuffed fillet of pork gourmet" and Moravian tartlets.