President Mary McAleese is to visit the Shankill Road in Belfast on Thursday. It will be her first visit to the loyalist heartland since a controversy over remarks about Protestant sectarianism on RTÉ last January.
Mrs McAleese will meet teachers, governors, pupils and parents at Edenbrooke school in the area which she was due to visit last February. However, that had to be called off following a furore over her RTÉ interview.
On Morning Ireland, Mrs McAleese said of the Nazis: "They gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews, in the same way that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children, an irrational outrageous hatred, for example, of Catholics, in the same way that people give to their children, an irrational outrageous hatred of those who have different colour . . ." Mrs McAleese apologised on RTÉ the following day.
The Ulster Unionists accepted her retraction and said the matter was closed as far as they were concerned. However, Progressive Unionist leader David Ervine said the damage was long-term.
Sources at Áras an Uachtaráin said the Edenbrooke visit was deferred rather than cancelled.
Jackie McDonnell, a senior south Belfast loyalist said at the time: ""No matter what she said or whatever way it was taken, it wasn't meant that way."
Since then Mrs McAleese has met staff and students from Edenbrooke on a number of occasions in Belfast and Dublin.
Her schedule on Thursday includes visits to other schools in the greater Belfast area and she is also due to meet Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde. Mrs McAleese has made more than 60 official visits to the North.