The pair were officiating at the opening of the Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre, and event and a venue rich with signficance for both men.

Here, she shares her thoughts on the occasion and its meaning.

"Bertie Ahern officiated at his last function and it in many ways summed up his achievement over the decade of having people of very different backgrounds share a space and do gentle jostling for their photograph with him.

This was a day of looking to the future and not glorifying the past. It was surely the most surreal moment of my life to date, given my strong Republican family background, to be on the site of the Battle of the Boyne site watching our Taoiseach welcome the First Minister of the North to what was far from a typical republican day out.

"Dr Paisley framed his speech around the letters of the word Boyne. It was as he got to the letter N and said "N is for..." you could hear the loud thoughts of many echoing: 'No Surrender'; 'Not an inch'; 'Never, never, never' and yet the sentence now goes: "No going back to what went on before". All this in glorious sunshine, surrounded by such a wide cross section of communities.

There was humour later amongst his own supporters when they commented that we were lucky that it was not the Mississippi river we were going to spell out or we would have been there some considerable length of time more.

"The other memorable message was that of: you are free to convert me to your way and I will be free to try to convert you to my way but this will be done by way of arguement and not by arms!

"There is no doubt that all this epitomises the huge strides forward that our country has taken under the Ahern reign. Who would have thought that Bertie's campaign manager for any potential Presidential campaign he should run would offer himself in the form of Ian Paisley. And for those who feel an antipathty to this type of event and are still raw with memories of the recent past, we must ask ourselves, how do republicans envisage an all-Ireland republic that does not respect difference and embrace all the peoples of the island?

"We cannot change the past so we must look to the future. To be a true Republican now is to follow the lead of the trust and respect that Bertie Ahern has worked to attain with those who were termed "the other" and yet who have shared our island for hundreds of years. As the new Ireland embraces new minorities, those opportunities and challenges that difference brings still must be worked at by each of us in all our communities. That is the future for an Ireland that is worth working for.

"The visitor centre in Oldbridge House with its depictions of the historic battle, its audio visual presentations, its historical exhibits and its outdoor displays, will entertain and inform all who come to see it.