It is no secret to those fortunate enough to have been born and lived there, but it is nice to know that the President of Ireland has acknowledged the fact. On an official visit to Donegal, the northernmost county in Ireland, Mary McAleese, who hails from Belfast, recounted how she felt on her first visit to an Irish-speaking area in the county.

"It was like Paradise," she said. "And to this day it still holds a special place in my heart."

That first visit took place forty years ago as one of a group of Belfast school children attending an Irish language learning course held in the Donegal Gaeltacht.

"We were a gang of 'Dominic's girls' (a school) fresh from the Mill Streets of Belfast," she told the pupils of Gaelscoil na gCeithre Maistri in Donegal town, on her seventh visit to the county since her election as President.

The President had a full official agenda on Thursday April 29, first to open community and heritage centres in Portnoo and Drimarone, and winding up at a meeting with the 77 pupils at the all-Irish school in Donegal town. For the benefit of Canadian readers this is the equivalent of a French immersion school.

She also had a memorable encounter with one junior infants' pupil, five-year old Dylan Kyle, who showed his bilingual prowess by loudly proclaiming in masterful English, "My homework sucks!"

Out of the mouths of babes and presidents come statements of great importance.

Donegal is Paradise. Visit it and see for yourself. Its scenery is beautiful, its people are friendly, its history is compelling, and if you have had the misfortune to be born elsewhere you will see what you have missed.

In case anyone should suspect bias in any of the above, it must be confessed that the writer himself was once a five-year old in junior infants' at school in Donegal.

Níl conntae in Éirinn níos deise ná thú,
Nó daoine sa domhain mhór is fearr cáil 's cliú
Ná tá in dTír Chonaill abhus agus thall,
Ó bláth bán ár dtír thú, a shean-Dún na nGall.

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