Question: What were your expectations of the foreign trips when you first took office?

President McAleese: The only insight I had into them before I became president was obviously as a spectator. I had watched President de Valera, President Hillery, President Robinson. I knew they were very important set pieces - that they had within them exactly the kind of iconic symbolism that the president is supposed to have.

My favourite images come from President Hillery's era. I always thought that Maeve Hillery . . . represented Ireland so beautifully. And similarly when Mary Robinson would go abroad. Of course, once you're in the role that perspective expands exponentially on the basis of your experience.

Q: Has globalisation and the real economic interdependencies between countries now expanded the role and portfolio of the President abroad?

A: It probably has in this sense. Ireland itself has changed dramatically. When one thinks of the presidents who were present during the early years of this State they were president during a period when we were very inward-looking. There was all the instability and all the vulnerability that comes from being an old nation but a young country. We had a strong distrust of the outside world.

You're entitled to expect that each president would customise him or herself around the new Ireland. That is important to explain. So often the stereotype that other countries have of us lags way behind the reality. I, for example, have made a very strong focus on trade and business. They're our life blood. If we want to ensure that the Celtic Tiger doesn't grow nasty and mean and have sharp claws, we have to ensure that we continue to sustain this level of trade to bring in the kind of wealth to generate the kind of economic dynamism that is going to spread more wealth throughout the community.

Q: It is often said that because of the restraints, the Presidency has little power. But is that definition of power based on an outdated, solely legislative, model that no longer applies in a global media age?

A: I think sometimes you could get in argument with people about what they mean by "power" really in that context. I'm not really interested in power. I want to have an effect. I'm not into "how much power does she have?" One small example, from a conversation I had sitting with a gentleman in Australia, a man who had left Ireland and arrived in Australia with £2 in his pocket. We got talking about modern Ireland, how different it was, how important it was to have knowledge of modern Ireland underpinned with scholarship. The next thing I hear is that because of this conversation, his family has donated $3 million [Australian] to a university in Australia in order to fund a chair in Irish studies. Now, that's effect.

Q: Of all your foreign trips, which would you say has been the most difficult or challenging?

A: The first trip I made, the one I absolutely wanted to do, and that was the trip to Lebanon. It was logistically the most difficult and there were security implications. I looked around for one of the most difficult places in the world they serve and that is Lebanon. There is no level of comfort there. They went to so much trouble . . . the other place you see it is when you meet the Irish emigrant community.

Q: Why did you want to go to Honduras?

A: Honduras was very important. One of the most important stories we have to tell today, and it's particularly important right now when we are becoming more wealthy as a people. People are a little bit concerned that maybe with the Celtic Tiger comes a cold heart.

So when I had the opportunity to come to this part of the world, the least I could do was to go and see all our NGOs [non-governmental organisations], to actually go out and see what kind of circumstances are they working in. And to say to them how much we at home value their work. Q: On another topic - in some instances, such as your meeting with a certain Mexican business- men's group, you must talk with people who may not share your values. Does this discomfort you at all?

A: I was born in Belfast, as the poet said. It is almost a short answer. If I was to live my life only talking to those people who agreed with me 100 per cent, I would be sitting having this sandwich entirely on my own right now.

One of the things I learned bitterly in living in Northern Ireland - despite what you might read in the papers, some of them have me living in republican Ardoyne which my Protestant neighbours would not thank you for - we for a long time were the only Catholics on the street we lived on. And we had a spectrum of Protestant unionists. I enjoy debate.

I enjoy the company of people who may not agree with me. I don't stay silent in their company. I think if you are sitting down in a mutually respectful forum the least you can do is offer each other your point of view.

Q: On the matter of forgiveness, which increasingly seems to be a component in world conflicts, at some point, people either decide to forgive old hatreds or they do not. Did you decide to forgive?

A: I know when it happened, I could almost tell you the day. In August 1969 I lived in Ardoyne, a poor parish which was overrun by the B Specials who were in uniform.

I remember coming back the night I got my A level results which told me I was getting into university, the first of my family. The parish priest took myself and a colleague out to dinner. I had never been out to dinner in my entire life. We came back that night and our lives had changed utterly in the space of three hours. We came back to a parish in which the men were out with hurling sticks and marbles, trying to emulate the sound of gunfire to fight off what was a uniformed police force attacking Catholic houses.

I was 18 and I was angry. It was as though the floor had suddenly opened up, as though you were in free fall. There was no active IRA at that time. We felt frightened. We were very vulnerable. We had stones thrown at us. I went into our house to get milk bottles. I wanted to get milk bottles to throw. I remember my father saying to me very sternly: "I did not rear a rebel."

You take your cue from the strongest people around you. My parents' reactions to these events were always so measured. No matter what happened to us. We had the night 30 people came to our front door - 30 of them stood on that main road. They lifted the paving stones, they broke them up, they pitched them through our window.

We phoned the police. They never came. I was the one who phoned them persistently. When they eventually came at two in the morning the crowd was gone, the windows were all broken, they had broken down the front door. Only for the arrival of some local men who drove them off, I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation now.

What was my parents' reaction to that? Are the nine children alive? So the windows are broken. So what? We can fix the windows, we can fix the door. Thanks be to God. Similarly, when my brother John [who is deaf] - there was a murderous attack on him - I was angry after that. I really wanted those guys lynched.

A crowd came to the door wanting to know who did this. We knew who they were, though they were never prosecuted because unfortunately they were neighbours. I remember my mother and father saying "No, we will not tell you, we do not want vengeance. Aren't we lucky he is alive?"

I have learned to discipline myself, not to respond in the time-honoured way which is to be hurt or to want vengeance. I turn that into my opportunity to teach myself more about the discipline of prayer, to go more profoundly into myself, and find within myself whatever resource I have to pray for that person and to forgive that person.

Q: How do you share that view with other people?

A: Maybe the best way of sharing it is not to preach it. That kind of self-righteousness gets on most people's nerves. All I can say is that my own experience is that I am always pained with myself when I let anger take over. Always. I feel a great sense of internal joy whenever I manage to transform that first instinct.

Q: Some feel your Presidency had a rough start, that there were a few mis-steps. Do you feel, as some people suggested, that you were out of touch with people, what people expected of you?

A: I think it's simple in some ways. We had a very popular president in Mary Robinson. I think there was a weaning-off process. It's a bit like getting used to a step-mum. The person settles into the role and the landscape around them.

Q: Did you feel that happening?

A: You do feel the ground firming up under you. In all the engagements I've had, going out and meeting people, that's what affirms you. You know very quickly if you're touching base with people. I have felt strongly that the bonds that are being established are really good bonds. I am very comfortable in the role.

It takes a while to get to know a person, doesn't it?