President McAleese hosted her annual garden party at Áras an Úachtaráin to mark July 12th and the anniversary yesterday of the Battle of the Boyne.
Some 350 people from the North's unionist community and members of the southern Protestant community enjoyed canapés and wine, 17th-century baroque music and the re-creation of a camp the night before battle that would have been typical of the Battle of the Boyne, with actors playing the roles of Williamite and Jacobite soldiers and other characters.
Close to 10,000 people from the North's unionist community were entertained at the Aras during the President's first term, and yesterday's garden party was the fourth in the past week. The others were to represent local communities, families and the international community in Ireland.
Guests at yesterday's event included representatives of the Protestant churches, North and South, and members of local communities in the North, media and representatives from the British embassy. They also included former governor of the Bank of Ireland Laurence Crowley, the President's father, Paddy Leneghan, and his friend, Jim Curran.
Mr Leneghan said: "Anything that brings the communities together is a good idea and important for everyone." Welcoming the visitors, Mrs McAleese told them: "The only agenda we have today is to enjoy each other's company". She said the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 changed the course of Irish and European history.
"Three centuries later we, their Williamite and Jacobite children, gather together acknowledging our very different debts to history, but also our shared responsibility for the future." She noted that Ireland's first president, Douglas Hyde, a Protestant Gaelic scholar, died on July 12th in 1949. Referring to the London bombings last week, she said: "Our hearts could get broken very easily", but she hoped friendships would not be broken or affected. "The most important thing today is the gift of your presence".
David Anderson, from Saintfield, Co Down, replying on behalf of the guests, echoed the President's words when he said that the garden party was the only State-sponsored event on July 12th anywhere on the island.
Paying tribute to the work of the President and her husband, Mr Anderson said that as a Northern Presbyterian "30 years ago I never thought I would cross the Boyne to see an Irish President on the Glorious 12th".
