President Michael D Higgins says he will be completely recovered from a mild stroke within two-to-three weeks.
He said there was no cognitive impairment from what was described at the time as a "transitory weakness".
However, the President said it had affected his left side including his arm and hip.
Speaking during press interviews ahead of a lecture at the University of Manchester, he said he is 90% recovered and will be completing a course at St James's Hospital.
President Higgins said he was working on a speech and about to meet a delegation from south Armagh when the stroke occurred on 29 February.
He said it began with a tingling in his left arm.
The stroke also exacerbated a problem in his lower back for which he will be undergoing a procedure.
However, it will not impact his presidential duties as he plans to give a Kofi Annan lecture in Africa and to attend a UN General Assembly.
Work on migration
After his conferral, the President talked about his academic work on migration at the time.
Asked about anti-migrant protests in Ireland today, he said that he felt there was an "external influence".
He said there is a "huge lacuna" in holding social media companies to account about what is broadcast.
But he added that people should not underestimate the "very huge support" there is in Ireland for migrants.
The President pointed to his own academic research which showed that of the Irish people born since 1901, 52% are living outside the country.
He criticised current EU policies saying that migration flows are predictable and could be better managed.
There are huge flows from climate change, ethnic conflict and border disputes, he said.
"If you address issues of food security, issues of education, issues in relation to health in particular its a more positive way of approach," he said.
Asked about Israeli defensiveness over pro-Palestinian attitudes in Ireland, President Higgins said it is a "crudity" to ask what side you are on.
He said it is about a particular version of the Israeli state headed by a particular person with agendas.
President speaks of importance of academic freedom
President Higgins spoke of the importance of academic freedom when he made the inaugural address at Manchester University as part of the John Kennedy lecture series.
He said universities can help with the pressing challenges of the day such as the crisis of democracy, the ecological crisis, the humanitarian crisis, global hunger and poverty, or the privileging of war at the expense of peace and multilateral engagement.
The President said food insecurity and hunger are key drivers behind dangerous forced migratory flows.
And he quoted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, describing the unprecedented hostility and toxicity towards people on the move.
The President told the audience "we are all migrants in time. Migration has been the natural condition of humankind as long as historical facts have been recorded.
"The benefits of such migration in every age have been of such importance, not least to scholarship."
He said given current challenges in the world the idea of academic freedom has never been more important.
"The conviction that the freedom of enquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission and principles of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts, including those that may be inconvenient to external political groups or funding authorities, without facing repercussions such as censorship, job loss, or even imprisonment."
And he added that when the freedom being lost is the concept of university itself then the there is a new level of threat.
He said "neo-functionalism" which prioritises the commodification of the learning experience and an obsession with efficiency, value for money and productivity can come at the expense of "real, deep learning".
"There is an urgent need to resist the quiet capture of universities, overtly or covertly, by powerful elites and corporate interests, to abandon cultural complacency about growing political, economic, and environmental injustices associated with concentrated wealth and power, to consider how restructuring universities as institutions committed to redistributing and sharing knowledge, wealth and power, rather than perpetuating policies and practices that concentrate and constrain knowledge, wealth, and power, could yield transformational benefits."
The President said universities can expand their impact and relevance by linking their scholarly missions with global solidarity and climate justice.
The title of the President's address was of "the consciousness our times need in responding to interacting crises and the role of universities as spaces of discourse in facilitating it".
The five year lecture series is named after Manchester businessman John Kennedy who was involved in the democratic peace process in Northern Ireland. He helped establish Warrington's Peace Centre after the 1993 bombing.
