To Emily O'Donnell it didn't matter that the thermometer registered barely three degrees above freezing. Walking stick tucked under one arm and an Asda carrier bag at her feet, the 78-year-old displayed the patience of a saint.

She said she'd waited all her life for the chance to meet an Irish president. By the look of her, she'd stand for another eight decades if necessary.

When Mary McAleese finally appeared, Mrs O'Donnell thrust her hand outwards and exchanged a few, treasured words. Like so many people in the Lanarkshire town of Coatbridge, the septuagenarian, who moved to Scotland from Dublin in 1949, is inextricably bound to Ireland and the occasion meant much to her.

Mrs McAleese's visit to Coatbridge yesterday, as part of her three-day trip to Scotland, acknowledged the presence of Scotland's largest single community of Irish diaspora. Her attendance at St Patrick's church brought back memories of the thousands of Irish people who passed through the Broomielaw in Glasgow to Coatbridge - which in the middle of the 19th century was enjoying an upsurge in industry.

There, with the Monkland Canal, and work in iron smelting, families from Ireland, mainly originating from the northern counties of Donegal, Down, Armagh, and Tyrone, could find a way to make a living rather than endure their homeland's famine. The numbers were sizeable. According to the 1851 census, Scotland's Irish-born population was just 7.2% of the total population. In Coatbridge, however, that figure stood at 35.8%.

Yesterday, said Mrs McAleese, was a time to celebrate "vindication" of the suffering endured by the forebears of Coatbridge's current Scots-Irish population.

By late morning, the modest church hall in the town's centre was awash with colour, predominantly emerald green. Napkins, straws, tablecloths, jackets, ties: all paid homage to the homeland. Organisers of the St Patrick's committee, which arranges Scotland's largest St Patrick's celebrations each March, ensured everything was pristine and in place. Youngsters from a half dozen Irish dancing schools, a dazzle of glitter and enthusiasm, prepared to perform.

Representatives from the clergy, Holyrood, and Westminster were also in attendance, but none took centre stage. This was, after all, a day to celebrate generations past and present of ordinary people with modest ambitions.

Shortly after 11.30pm, the bucks fizz and the sausage rolls were hurriedly scoffed. The committee members lined up against the wall, and the hall fell to silence. The scene seemed set for Pope Benedict XVI himself. It was though, Mrs McAleese, dressed head-to-toe in a deep purple, who swept into the room, joking that she felt as if she were in Donegal or Mayo. Her speech went on to the community's "outward signs of the indwelling Irishness that is such a rich part of its spirit and character."

"Ireland's emigrants may have looked like people who had lost all when they left their native home, but here in Coatbridge we see how much they won, how much they achieved, and how much their faith in Ireland helped to generate the momentum that has made Ireland today a place that people no longer leave," she said.

"Each one of you shares a love of Ireland and its abundant culture. That love takes nothing away from your love of Scotland and its rich culture, for the two are so complementary, so obviously first cousins to one another, not least in our common beloved gaelic language."

After a quick tour of the church and a wealth of handshaking, Mrs McAleese was gone - whisked off by a Special Branch Mercedes. Emily O'Donnell picked up her Asda bag, the smile on her face seemingly set in stone. "Celebrating our Irishness in Scotland is something we all feel free to do nowadays," she said. "It's a lovely, lovely occasion."

Mrs McAleese also met First Minister Jack McConnell at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow before being awarded an honorary degree from Edinburgh University.