It would help if there were two Mary McAleeses. That would make it easier to reconcile the different versions of her which are currently in circulation.

For example, the youth wing of the Ulster Unionist Party issued a statement alleging that "someone in Dublin, possibly connected with the McAleese campaign" was spreading rumours the Young Unionists were supporting her candidacy.

This was condemned as "an obvious attempt to smear the organisation". Whomever the Republic's voters chose for President was a matter for them. "We would, however, state that we find the strident and hardline nationalist views of Mary McAleese particularly repugnant," the Young Unionists added.

Cut to Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, ensconced in his Falls Road office yesterday. "Mary McAleese has never been involved with our party," he said. When it was pointed out that the unionists called her "strident and hardline", he replied that "the unionists consider anyone outside of the Unionist Party to be strident and hardline".

So she's not Sinn Fein, she's obviously not unionist, perhaps her sympathies lie with the SDLP? The comments from some SDLP sources were surprisingly acerbic.

If she supports us, she has kept fairly quiet about it, some of them said. But a leading SDLP activist who is working on her behalf said Ms McAleese had been a member of the Finaghy branch in South Belfast in the 1970s, though this automatically lapsed when she moved to the Republic.

Her position as Pro-Vice Chancellor of Queen's precluded her from direct involvement in more recent times but she had nevertheless been "supportive" of the SDLP in Rostrevor and South Down.

One seasoned observer of Northern affairs said: "She has always been very careful not to say or do anything that would put her in a position where she might be pigeonholed."

Everyone agrees Mary McAleese has considerable ability and intelligence. But critics in her own community say it was always "Mary first, last and foremost". More benign observers say she represents a section of the Catholic community that is moving into positions of power and influence in the North as part of the quiet demographic and sociological revolution of the last two decades.

If there is evidence of a republican link, it seems the authorities in Northern Ireland are unaware of it. Had there been any definite suggestion of Sinn Fein sympathies, the question arises as to how she came to be appointed to so many public bodies both inside Queen's University and with outside organisations such as the BBC, Channel 4, Northern Ireland Electricity and the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust.

A trawl through the files has her saying in February 1984: "I can understand so easily why people join the IRA. I felt that same desire for vengeance tearing at me, but deep down in my psyche I had strong Christian values."

On another occasion she is quoted as characterising Northern Ireland as "the archetypal police state".

When the Sunday Times questioned her about such statements recently, she said she did not want to be tied down to views expressed 13 years ago. "We have all moved on. I have, certainly, if you look at my own life and my own commitment to peace."

In an interview with David McKittrick of the Independent three years ago, she said: "My ambition would still be for a united Ireland but I don't know how realistic an ambition that is. I think it's a very noble ambition, but it's one that I may have to surrender if there were some mechanism which will guarantee fair shares for all of us."

A leading member of the SDLP said claims that Ms McAleese had militant nationalist sympathies were heavily exaggerated. "Mary McAleese didn't say anything that couldn't be said by half the SDLP." The SDLP activist described the report of her conversations with an Irish civil servant as "ventilation" and "thinking out loud".

Interviewed by the Irish News in 1995, Ms McAleese said that she "became radicalised in a way" when she saw the B-Specials burning houses in her native Ardoyne in North Belfast in the late 1960s. Her own family were machine-gunned out of their house by loyalists.

"I never missed an opportunity in Dublin to tell the story as I saw it of Northern Ireland." But when she did so, she found she was very quickly labelled. "There's nothing more aggravating than to meet people who have not been through that furnace who have become vocal observers, and who try to label you as a neo-Provo, that kind of handy glib label," she continued.

It is clear from these quotations that Ms McAleese knew exactly what she was getting into when she offered herself for the Presidency.

Some observers believe it is not her past or present views but her very origins in the North that are causing so much discomfort to the chattering classes. But in the contest between Ardoyne and Dublin 4 it isn't hard to determine who has the hardest knuckles.