Quote

I call on everyone of goodwill both in Ireland and abroad to join now in ensuring that the beginning of peace becomes a reality, before this year is out. Let us together open a new era in our history.

I am hugely proud to have played for Ireland.

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

Ireland has made its choice for the future and it has chosen the version of Irishness it will build. I know, and I will work with head and heart to be part of it with all of you in creating that future one in which all of us can be part of and part of us too.

We've got enormous potential, phenomenal potential on our doorstep, which requires politics that makes that work, and that's what we try to show here in Ireland: that while there's a lot of pain, the reward at the end of this is career opportunities, prosperity, and brighter days for everybody.

The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots... I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.

I will be a President for all the people, whether they voted for me or not, whether they are young or old and particularly for the Irish abroad. I'm looking forward to it and I think it will be exciting and wonderful.

I am delighted with the strong vote I have received. My message of positive leadership, patriotism and commitment clearly was resonating with tens of thousands of ordinary Irish people.

There's a lot I've missed about living in Ireland. You miss family, particularly when you've got kids.