Degree honour for Irish president

Ms McAleese was inaugurated as the Irish head of state in 1997

Irish President Mary McAleese has been awarded an honorary degree from one of Scotland's oldest universities.

Ms McAleese became a honorary Doctor of Laws at a graduation ceremony marking 300 years since Edinburgh University's first chair in Law.

The barrister and professor of law has been president for almost a decade.

Lord Justice-Clerk Lord Gill and the South African lawyer and former anti-apartheid campaigner Justice Albie Sachs also received honorary degrees.

Ms McAleese is the first president of the Irish Republic to hail from Northern Ireland.

University vice-principal, Professor Vicki Bruce, said: "Throughout her academic, journalistic, legal and presidential career, Mary McAleese has been a voice of reform and reason, seeking educated and enlightened contemporary solutions to problems that go back many generations.

"Initially feared by the loyalists in Northern Ireland, she is now greatly respected by them.

"She has taken a profoundly personal and individual approach to building trust between the different communities in Ireland who have been divided in the past."

She said Ms McAleese had served her people "intelligently and empathetically".