Connect: President McAleese was right to apologise for her remark about "people in Northern Ireland transmitting to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics".
Despite her saying "people", not "Protestants", the remark was sectarian insofar as it posited hatred being directed at one community only. Nonetheless, much reaction to her remark has been politically opportunistic.
Ian Paisley Jnr, for instance, responded: "Her comments are completely irrational and are designed to insult the integrity of the Protestant community and damn an entire generation of Protestant people; so much for bridge-building Mary. Her mask as being a leader of divided peoples has slipped. She is spewing out hatred of the Protestant community . . ." Whoa there, Paisley Jnr, easy on! Such language - especially coming from you - is disproportionate. In fact, your daddy's performance in the European Parliament in 1988 when he unfurled insulting banners and repeatedly shouted "Antichrist!" at the Pope, adding "I renounce you and all your cults and creeds" was hardly intended to be bridge-building.
Nor was his protest at the lowering of the union flag on Belfast City Hall to mark the death of Pope John XXIII in June, 1963; or his description of Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich as "the mallet of Rome" on the night of his death in May, 1990; or his repeated branding of the Catholic Church as the "whore of Babylon" or . . . the list is too long and too damning to recall or research.
Over his long political career Ian Paisley has frequently displayed a bigotry far beyond any that could be reasonably levelled at Mary McAleese. His son surely knows as much. If he doesn't, he is even more intractably bigoted.
Yet no apologies have ever been forthcoming from the Paisleys or from those who support them. None, quite frankly, are expected and few are demanded.
Issues of bigotry, hatred, sectarianism in the North, Northern Ireland, Six Counties, Ulster or Fourth Green Field are often near the core of people's identities. The words people use - in fact, even the gestures, as Seamus Heaney recognised when he wrote of a "land of password, handgrip, wink and nod" and "open minds as open as a trap" - are considered determining.
For instance, among other reactions to McAleese's comment was one from Robin Newton, a DUP councillor from East Belfast. "You can take the woman out of Ardoyne," he wrote to the (Belfast) Newsletter "but you can't take Ardoyne out of the woman".
This profound wit was repeated by commentators in the Republic without any mention of how deeply offensive it is in itself.
Why ought a person from Ardoyne necessarily want to rid themselves of their background? Surely such a response is at least as revealing as Mary McAleese's remark. Yet there is no perfectly balanced middle from which equilibrium is possible.
Ultimately, the place demands support for one side or the other, no matter how tenuous or qualified or circumstantial such support might be.
It's popularly - rightly or wrongly - believed in this part of Ireland that Northern Protestants are more likely to be anti-Catholic than vice versa while Northern Catholics are considered excessively anti-British. That, at least, was the public perception throughout the Troubles. The newer generation of younger adults cares less for religion or party politics. Economics concern most of them more.
In some respects, that's arguably positive. Yet ignorance is never to be welcomed. The length of the conflict and increased affluence have bred fatigue and apathy. Terence O'Neill's notion that, given certain conditions, Catholics could be more like Protestants has given way to the equally patronising idea that everyone should be less politically and more economically engaged.
And so it goes. In relation to the North, there's always an "on the one hand" and an "on the other". Still, some aspects of the place where "croppies lie down" was an ethos are beyond dispute. Its first prime minister, James Craig, described it as a "Protestant state for a Protestant people". His successor, Basil Brookeborough, stated proudly that he "did not have a Catholic about the place".
Mary McAleese, born in 1951, grew up with Brookeborough in the top job. He presided from 1943 to 1963. Given his attitude, hers is more understandable even if her remark is not defensible. Given IRA actions over the years, it's understandable too that many Protestants hardened in their attitudes. Yet the notion that the side with most power could ever be blameless is bigoted too.
Media loved the spat, of course. It provided conflict that touched on ancient animosities and issues of deep - indeed, for many people, core - identity. Comparison with Nazi-generated hatred of Jews guaranteed it would become even more inflamed. Then again, we should know to expect no better from shrill media, screeching for attention while hyping and distorting at every opportunity.
Anyway, McAleese has the consolation that she spoke from an office in which Protestants have served with distinction. Those who call her sectarian would be more persuasive if they campaigned to allow Catholics compete to become the head of state across the Irish Sea.