Mary Patricia McAleese (; born 27 June 1951) is the eighth, and current President of Ireland. She is Ireland's second female president and the world's first woman to succeed another woman as an elected head of state. She was first elected president in 1997 and was re-elected, without contest, to another seven-year term in 2004. McAleese was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland and prior to becoming president she was a barrister, journalist and academic.

Ireland (pronounced ; ; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe,Great Britain being the largest and Iceland being the second largest. and the twentieth-largest island in the world.See List of islands by area. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.

The population of the island is slightly over 6 million (2007), with 4.4 million in the Republic of IrelandCSO: Central Statistics Office Ireland (1.7 million in Greater DublinPopulation of the Greater Dublin Area to reach 2 million by 2021, Central Statistics Office Ireland) and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland[http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhcw...