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McAleese meets with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin earlier today. Sergey Ponomarev/AP
Russia
McAleese to send Medvedev DVDs of gaelic football and hurling
Mary McAleese pledges to educate her Russian counterpart in gaelic games as she invites him on an official visit to Ireland.
PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE has told Dmitry Medvedev that she will send him DVDs of gaelic games – and has invited the Russian president to come to Ireland on an official state visit.
McAleese also discussed Ireland’s forthcoming Euro 2012 qualifier with the Russians when she met with her local counterpart in the Kremlin for half an hour on the third day of her official visit to the country.
Inviting Medvedev on an official visit to Ireland, McAleese suggested that Medvedev’s visit should be timed to coincide with a GAA match of some sort.
The president has since travelled to St Petersburg where she is visiting the site of the Siege of Leningrad.
A visit to Ireland would be the first time a Russian head of state will have come to these shores since Boris Yeltzin’s infamously ill-fated visit in September 1994, when the president failed to disembark from his plane in Shannon Airport.
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