AT this time of year, exiles return home, their cheeks rosy with delight, burble, burble... Ireland is going through a dark time... great little country... blah, blah... confidence and pride... peace, community, waffle... sustainable... togetherness... resilience... schmaltz.

That was just a précis for those of you who might have missed President Mary McAleese's Christmas message to her people. After all, it's not inconceivable that you might have missed the president's message because it was issued on 19 December, some six days before you might have been expecting it. No point gathering round the telly on Christmas Day, expecting to see our leader standing in front of some William Morris-looking wallpaper in a robust frock and pearls, exhorting us to muster our self-belief. That's not how we do things in this country.

Or is it? Pointless figurehead in relatively sensible shoes, anyone? Purely titular head of state with unwritten 'ambassadorial' role? Pleasant-looking woman who costs the exchequer an absolute fortune and in our case cannot even claim to boost tourism revenue in return? Most prominent member of the legion of public figures who say nothing at all and use 1,000 words to say it in?

Diligent McAleese-watchers, who have asked not to be named, noticed that her Christmas message for this year was very much like her Christmas message for last year. Then she said that 2009 was a year that had "sorely tested" many people but community had triumphed. Similarly, in her 2008 Christmas message, she observed that many of us would be reflecting on the great changes that had happened that year but we should remember our "considerable progress".

The woman has been handing out insipid half-time oranges for years now. At the Irish Book Awards last month, she invited us to "rise to the challenge" of getting ourselves out of trouble; at the annual Newman lecture in October she urged us to be "confident in our enduring strengths"; last April, addressing the Institute of International and European Affairs, she said there was "a huge onus on us, ourselves, to dig our way out of this crisis".

Best of all, in her St Patrick's Day speech, the president went so far as to counsel that we should follow the example of Patrick himself, since he had been a slave and what have you but had managed to put all that behind him, plucky little soul that he was.

"Patrick's resilience and his forgiveness, his focus on the future and his faith in the Irish are a continuing source of inspiration to us as we tackle today's tough challenges," she remarked, in what was perhaps the most illustrative example yet of the way the president thinks in bumper stickers. ('What would St Patrick do?')

It becomes increasingly clear that the second-cushiest job in Ireland, after president, is president's speechwriter. Honestly, there's just the one speech. You could sum up the message of Mary McAleese's entire presidency with a simple calendar – 12 photos of kittens saying "Hang in There!" The corny-greeting-card people must be queuing up outside Áras an Uachtaráin with contract offers; Hallmark is thinking of a special division called Plámás an Uachtaráin. Is the president just too nice to have a word with her speechwriter?

Sifting through the newspaper archives for the past several years turns up an exhausting list of peoples and institutions on whom the president has heaped thanks and praise, in tranches of 500 and 600 words at a time. No one is left uncongratulated, so that the very currency of congratulation is devalued in Weimar proportions. Merely hold the lift door for Mary McAleese and you risk being honoured with a verbose speech lauding your gutsy contribution to the greater good.

The president has praised, among others: women (several times), Belfast Jews, Islamic students, farming groups, Cork Opera House, the staff of Dublin Zoo, the Medical Missionaries of Mary, the Irish diaspora, Irish explorers, the English rugby team, the Scottish, the Irish Countrywomen's Association, undergraduates, the Hungarians, Irish Aid, Fatima Mansions, Northern Ireland barristers, community activists, Riverdance, and Limerick. Need I go on? Would you pay me ¤250,000 a year to go on?

Just because you're constitutionally prevented from saying anything controversial, that doesn't mean you can't say anything interesting. It makes you wonder what sort of woman Mary McAleese really is.

Either she's really like that – the sort of person who never has an impure thought and never offends anyone even unintentionally and says "please goodness" instead of "please God" so as not to break a commandment that even God is probably not that bothered about any more – or she's putting on an act. Which is it?

Please goodness, now, the next president of Ireland will be someone who realises that it's nice to be nice but it's more important to be important.

Different rules for different despots

WikiLeaks, led by the indomitable though regrettably creepy-looking Julian Assange, performed another important service, last week shedding more light, if more light were needed, on the questionable conduct of international diplomacy.

It emerged that former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan offered Robert Mugabe a deal to step down in 2000. Sources said they didn't know the exact terms of the offer but it probably included money and a safe haven in Libya. The Zimbabwean leader refused after consulting his wife, the confidential document said.

This goes to show that you cannot at all predict, ever, how the international community will respond to despots. It might invade their country and overthrow them (Afghanistan, Yugoslavia). It might impose sanctions (Cuba, Iran). It might simply cosy up to them – "100 barrels, thanks, here have some armaments, have a trade agreement" (Saudi Arabia, China). It might try all three at different times (Iraq). Or it might try to bribe them out of office.

And there we were thinking there must be rules about this sort of thing.

etynan@tribune.ie

Diarmuid Doyle is on leave