After sixty-something visits to the North, this felt more like starting over for the President in her own city. As her car swept up to the doors of the City Hospital on the fringes of the loyalist Village district there were glances to see if any of the offence caused last month by Mrs McAleese's remarks would be transformed into protest.
The arrival of senior UDA figure Jackie McDonald prompted a flurry of activity once the President had arrived, smiled, shaken hands and stepped trouble-free into the hospital. Jackie, in his open-neck shirt despite the biting chill, offered only warm words that not even the Aras could have scripted for him.
He dispelled all notion of Shankill people harbouring grievances against her. "Mary", as he called her throughout his impromptu press conference, was just terrific, and he was sure it wouldn't be too long before she was welcomed among the red, white and blue kerbstones of loyalism's heartland.
The President, meanwhile, visited patients at the Regional Respiratory Centre, including we're told, her aunt and an uncle. Outside the only onlookers were the curious and smokers banished from the wards of the hospital tower block.
With her planned visit to a Shankill primary school off the agenda, it emerged that, rather than visit them, they would visit her. Lunch was taken at a central hotel with the school principal, governors and parents. Sources suggested quietly that the Shankill visit was "deferred" rather than "cancelled" for fear of small children running the gauntlet of a protest. Another visit before the end of the school year is a good bet.
High on Hannahstown hill above the city, Gerry Adams's West Belfast merges, if that's the word, into Jeffrey Donaldson's Lagan Valley.
A new centre, built by the local community, played host to Mrs McAleese who arrived amid flurries of swirling snow.
Just as the constituency boundaries between Sinn Féin and DUP were invisible outside, it was impossible to point out the differences among those who gave Mrs McAleese a spontaneous standing ovation.