Irish president to stop in Philadelphia area

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Irish President Mary McAleese will begin an eight-day visit Friday to the United States and Canada focused on promoting trade with the Pacific Northwest.
She is scheduled to receive an honorary degree Sunday from Villanova University, near Philadelphia, on Sunday. She then will spend three days in Seattle with representatives of 29 Irish high-tech and aerospace businesses, and to visit Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' charitable foundation. The trip is to finish in Vancouver, Canada.
It will be McAleese's 12th visit to the United States and her second to Canada since she took office in 1997.
The Irish president is the symbolic head of state, but has few powers and largely plays a ceremonial, ambassadorial role. McAleese, a Belfast-raised Catholic who is the first president to come from Northern Ireland, has made building relations with the north's British Protestant community a top priority of her presidency.