When it came to the subject of the late British monarch, she spoke about Elizabeth\u2019s love of hurling.<\/p>\n
McAleese said they spoke about the sport while travelling together in a car with King Albert II of Belgium and his wife Paola in November 1998. They were on the way to an Island of Ireland war memorial peace park in Belgium.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were knee to knee, two opposite two and I was sitting next to Queen Paola, and she (Elizabeth) starting talking about shinty and hurling,\u201d McAleese said.<\/p>\n
Shinty is a Scottish game similar to hurling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe loved shinty and she loved hurling and she knew a lot about both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also mentioned Paisley of course,\u201d she said, noting that \u201che had stayed out of the Good Friday Agreement, stayed out for seven years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said Queen Elizabeth \u201cabhorred him and his politics\u201d and had \u201cno time for him whatsoever\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he had never been very nice to her anyway. He was quite scathing about her and said some terrible things when she went and saw the pope and that sort of thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we were talking about him and Queen Paola said to us, \u2018Who is this man Paisley you were talking about, I don\u2019t know him\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the queen looked at her and said, \u2018Oh lucky you\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had a fabulous sense of humour, you know, and I was privileged to see that on quite a number of occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"queen-elizabeth-ll-and-prince-philip-duke-of-edinburgh-arrive-at-aras-an-uachtarain-in-dublin-with-president-mary-mcaleese-and-dr-martin-mcaleese-at-the-start-of-an-historic-visit-to-ireland-on-may-17\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786808415_181_.jpeg\")
\n Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh arrive at Aras An Uachtarain in Dublin with President Mary McAleese and Dr Martin McAleese in 2011 Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n
McAleese said that, from the first time she met the queen, before becoming president, \u201cI knew that she wanted to come to Ireland\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me that it was one of her great sorrows that she had never been able to come to the Republic and that she felt that because of that her contribution to peace was, in a sense, incomplete.\u201d<\/p>\n
McAleese said she offered to help her in any way she could. Then, when she became president, the queen reminded her, \u201cYou made a promise\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, I did and we\u2019ll keep it, but it took 14 years to get to the point where it became feasible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The visit eventually came right at the end of McAleese\u2019s second term in office and, against the suggestions of one diplomat, she insisted it be a full, three-day state visit.<\/p>\n
She said the queen would be coming \u201cas a Christian pilgrim, on a pilgrimage of reconciliation and sorrow, of genuine sorrow for the past\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I said, we have to believe in that. And of course, it ended up being a four-day visit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER PRESIDENT OF Ireland Mary McAleese has said the late Queen Elizabeth of Britain had a very low…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,129,173196,19,17,11,12,270184,15,16,72599,5,57443,79454,270185,270186,7,8],"class_list":["post-638848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-hurling","tag-ian-paisley","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-lucky-you","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mary-mcaleese","tag-news","tag-peace-process","tag-queen-elizabeth","tag-shinty","tag-the-ireland-podcast","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117100283837943257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}