FORMER President Mary McAleese has slammed social media and warned the world has become a “nastier space”.
Patrick Kielty returned to Montrose tonight with a regular episode of The Late Late Show, after two weeks of specials.
Appearing alongside former RTE star Mary Kennedy, Mary McAleese discussed their friendship, the state of the world and the upcoming Irish Presidential election.
The two Marys are now hosts of The Changing Times podcast, and had a lot to say.
Mrs McAleese said: “Social media has just made dialog almost impossible.
“Everything is reduced to nasty little snide comments that you can fit into, whether it is 140 things on a what used to be called tweet.
“I don’t do tweets, or Twitter any of those things. I stay away from social media.”
Mrs McAleese admitted she hates social media sites, adding “I feel so exposed on them”.
She continued: “I think the world has become in terms of dialog, it’s just become a nastier space.
“Though, ironically, having said that, the place that you and I both come from, Northern Ireland- when I look at the two young women now who are First and Deputy First Minister, they’ve gone the other way.
“They smile at each other. They’re happy in each other’s company.
“Miles apart politically, political ambitions, very different attitudes. Very different, but they’re civil.
“And so there’s a kind of a civility now in Northern discourse that used to be absent, used to be very raw.
“Politics, I think, in certain parts of the world has gone very raw.”
Mrs McAleese discussed her hopes that the “ceasefire will hold”.
She said: “I look at what’s happening in the Middle East. These are neighbours.
“You and I know this, when you live in an environment where you’re always going to be neighbours to each other.
“You’d be better get on with each other, because if you don’t get on with each other, your children, in perpetuity, will never know peace.
“That’s what we lived with, you and I, that’s what we lived with in Northern Ireland.
“And I just look at that, and I hope and pray that some of these days, that the peace…
“For example, that the ceasefire will hold, and that the next phase will hold, and the phase after that will lead to the realisation that if you keep wanting 100 per cent of everything, then you end up with 100 per cent of nothing.
“Because that’s how we lived for a long time in Northern Ireland.”
‘NAGGING’
The 73-year-old praised the “extraordinary genius” John Hume for his single transferable speech.
She said: “He nagged us into the reality that if we didn’t compromise, we were always just going to live in misery.
“And it’s that here are neighbours in the Middle East, and the hatred is intense.
“Then sooner or later, that has got to go. It’s got to go, it’s got to be let go.
Mrs McAleese insisted there are people in the world “who want peace”.
She continued: “I mean to look at the people going back to their homes in Gaza today that aren’t there, actually, that aren’t there.
“And to think of the 40,000 who are dead, to think of those poor hostages, some of whom will never come home now because they’ve died in the meantime.
“But to look at the reconciliation when they meet their families, and the joy of love. If we can get to that.”
Mrs McAleese highlighted the lack of female representation in the new government.
She said: “There’s something systemic that we need to look at there.
“On the other hand, in every other area of life, every other profession, every other calling in life, women are little by little, chapter by chapter, writing new chapters.”
