Biography of the Chancellor

Dr Mary McAleese was appointed Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin on 6 December 2019.

Mary McAleese was born in Belfast and grew up in Ardoyne, an area severely affected by sectarian violence during the Troubles. The eldest of nine children, she experienced first-hand the impact of paramilitary violence on her family and community, experiences which shaped her lifelong commitment to non-violence, anti-sectarianism, interreligious dialogue, reconciliation and human rights.

She graduated in Law from Queen’s University Belfast in 1973 and was called to the Bar of the Inns of Court of Northern Ireland (1974) and the King's Inns Dublin (1978). In 1975, she was appointed Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin. She subsequently trained as a current affairs journalist with RTÉ before returning in 1987 to her alma mater, Queen’s University Belfast, as Director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. In 1994, she became the university’s first female Pro-Vice Chancellor.

Mary McAleese was a founder member of the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas, and Belfast Women’s Aid. She served on the boards of Channel 4 Television, BBC Northern Ireland, the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust and Northern Ireland Electricity.

In 1997 she became the first President of Ireland from Northern Ireland. During her two terms of office, from 1997 to 2011, she pursued a theme of reconciliation through ‘Building Bridges’, culminating in the historic State Visit to Ireland by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011, the first visit by a British monarch since independence.

Following her presidency, she returned to full-time study, graduating with both a Licentiate and Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. In 2018 she was appointed Professor of Children, Law and Religion at the University of Glasgow. She is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Ansari Institute, Notre Dame University, Patron of the Von Hugel Institute at the University of Cambridge and has previously held distinguished academic appointments including Burns Scholar at Boston College (2013), Keogh-Naughton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame (2015) and Distinguished Scholar at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (2016). She is a member of The Trilateral Commission and a member of the council of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute.

Dr McAleese is the author of Reconciled Being (1997), Building Bridges (2011), Quo Vadis (2013), Children’s Rights and Obligations in Canon Law (2019), Here’s the Story: A Memoir (2020) and The Seventeen Irish Martyrs (2022).  

Her many recognitions include numerous honorary doctorates and national and international awards, among them the Gilbert Medal (2016)  awarded by Universitas 21 for her work as Chair of the European Union Commissions expert group on the modernisation  of third level education in the EU,  the University of Tubingen’s Alfons Auer Ethics Prize (2019) for her work on children’s rights in Canon Law,  the UNANIMA International Woman of Courage Award (2019), Honorary Lifetime Membership of the University College Dublin History Society (2026) and the Praeses Elit award of the Trinity College Dublin Law Society (2015 and 2026).

She is married since 1976 to Dr Martin McAleese, a graduate of the Dublin Dental University Hospital at Trinity College Dublin. They have three children, Emma, Justin and Sara.