President Mary McAleese flew to the US this week on her first visit since being elected, aware that she was following in the footsteps of Mary Robinson. But she showed that she will do the job her way.
As if to prove that she can handle the demanding American circuit with just as much class and effectiveness, Mrs McAleese insisted on a gruelling programme which required a dozen speeches and 13 changes of costume over five days. Even President Robinson on her many visits here, including the state visit two years ago, did not set such a pace.
While the new President did not get the trappings of a state visit such as the 21-gun salute, the welcome on the South Lawn of the White House and a glittering state banquet, she maximised what the Irish side called "an official visit" but the Americans a "private" one.
Just about every waking hour was filled with engagements in Washington and New York, but it was touch and go on the big one as Irish officials twisted arms for a meeting with President Clinton, who was about to leave for China and had a full schedule. Mrs McAleese was allotted a 15minute meeting in the Oval Office, which ended up lasting twice as long. President Clinton showed yet again that, where Ireland is concerned, he cannot say no.
He also brought along his top foreign policy team: Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, and national security adviser, Mr Sandy Berger.
As the "first Irish President from Ulster", as she put it herself, Mrs McAleese aroused special interest among Americans in a week in which the voters in Northern Ireland were deciding their future under the peace process.
Her own election, she said to journalists, was seen as especially significant "by those who truly have their finger on the pulse of what is happening in Ireland" - that a native of Belfast should be President of Ireland was "the right thing at the right time". Irish-Americans told her that, she said.
The McAleese style is clearly different from the Robinson mixture of aloofness and shyness. Officials confided that the new President was "easy to travel with," implying that she was less demanding than her predecessor.
Mrs McAleese arrived with her speeches well worked on, between first drafts by the embassy in Washington and revisions in Iveagh House, the Department of the Taoiseach and by the President herself. She frequently adlibbed to illustrate points but stuck also to the text. Once Daniel O'Connell came out as Daniel O'Donnell, but few Americans would have noticed.
She was not afraid to banter as at Georgetown University where she revealed she had been "to the cinema" once with the president, Father Leo O'Donovan, but added after a pause that her husband, Martin, had been there to make it a threesome. Father O'Donovan entered into the spirit by giving her a chaste peck on the cheek as he presented her with the president's Medal. Her 14-page Georgetown speech seemed as if it would be too long on a hot Washington afternoon, but it was delivered at a good pace and held the audience as it ranged over modern Irish culture, the economy and Northern Ireland.
These themes recurred again and again but once or twice a note of concern was injected that the runaway success of the Celtic Tiger was in danger of leaving the "socially marginalised" behind.
Not that she has anything to do with "politics". She more than once explained to Americans that as President she has "no hand, act or part" in anything her Government decides.
One well-informed interviewer pushed her for her views on Gerry Adams, divorce and abortion and on her reception of communion at a Protestant service. But she gave nothing away.
The communion episode was in the past and she had no more to say. But she had pledged to worship with all denominations and would soon join in a Buddhist ceremony.
Gerry Adams was linked with other Northern Ireland leaders for their "enormous qualities of leadership". On abortion and divorce, the Irish people had debated these exhaustively and voted. She has her "private views" and "it would be improper for me to iterate them on the air", she said firmly.
In New York, she impressed hard-headed business executives with crisp speeches setting out the amazing statistics of the Irish economic miracle and inviting them to become part of it if they were not so already.
At the IDA lunch in the posh St Regis Hotel, officials noted that she had passed the "knife and fork" test, as the busy executives refrained from nibbling at the hors d'oeuvres as she went through her speech.
Those who had also seen President Robinson in action said later that Mrs McAleese was an equally "class act" in her presence, grooming and delivery.
Was she still being seen in Ireland as "in the shadow" of her predecessor, this correspondent asked at the media breakfast, and were people, perhaps unfairly, making unfavourable comparisons?
If they were, President Mc Aleese has "not heard them". Perhaps "the odd journalist at the beginning. But I think people understand that I am a different person, a new person in the same role but perhaps doing it in a different way. We have different characteristics but more importantly, we are living through very, very different times."
She was "very, very grateful" to President Robinson for providing a "ramp" from which she could launch her own presidency. "I would not describe that as a shadow," she said.
President McAleese was also received with due deference at the UN by the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, who is now Mrs Robinson's boss.
The President is dead. Long live the President.