President wants Belfast children to grow up in peace
As she met children from Edenbrooke Primary School at a reception in South Belfast following the cancellation of a visit to them at their loyalist Shankill Road school, President McAleese paid tribute to their talent.
And she also thanked Northern Ireland football manager Lawrie Sanchez, who attended the reception, for giving everyone in the province a wonderful memory with the 1-0 victory over England in the World Cup qualifier Wednesday night.
President McAleese told the pupils: “You have fantastic teachers and fantastic mummies and daddies who know how good you are and how great you are.
“They want all that talent to shine and they want the peace for that talent to shine, come out and radiate and make this a wondrous, harmonious place to grow up.
“That is what we wish for our children and we wish friendship for them too.”
President McAleese was forced to abandon plans to visit Shankill at the last minute because of fierce rioting in the area.
The DUP’s Ian Paisley Jr, who sits on the Policing Board that hold chief constable Hugh Orde to account, claimed the police chief had treated the authority with contempt.
He said: “The decision by the chief constable to meet with the head of State of Dublin is a highly political meeting that ought not to take place.
“The Chief Constable has nothing to report to Mary McAleese.
“All sense of protocol has been abandoned and all to assist a visit by someone who has done her best to insult the majority of people here by likening them to Nazis.”
The President and her husband have been welcomed by Ulster Defence Association brigadier Jackie McDonald.
Mr McDonald, who has had a good relationship with the President, met her earlier this year during her last visit following controversy after her claims that children in the North had been raised to despise Catholics in the same way as the Nazis instilled a hatred of the Jews in their children.
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