The presidential election campaign has reopened a very raw wound for those of us who were born into the Northern nationalist community, the minority within the minority on this island.
Perhaps the time has come for us to accept the reality that Partition has worked for everyone else on this island except ourselves.
I had a typical Northern nationalist upbringing. The Rosary, the GAA, Irish music, the Irish language, Tom Barry's My Fight for Irish Freedom and a fortnight's holiday in Co Donegal every July when the Orangemen were marching to show who was boss.
People from my community were bred for export because there was no possibility of a job or a council house. In fact, we did not even have a vote in the local elections under the old Stormont government.
I remember my father and mother exercising their franchise in the Westminster elections once. It was a very tense time. There were only two candidates, a Sinn Feiner called Mitchell, who was in jail, and the unionist candidate.
The B-Specials put up roadblocks and questioned all the Catholics going to the polls at gun point because they knew they were not going to be voting for the Marquis of Hamilton.
I could whine on for ever, about the conditions in the "fourth green field", but I know now that nothing is more off-putting for the average citizen of this State than that kind of carry-on.
Anyhow, I came South seeking work just when the RUC batons were splitting the skulls of civil rights marchers who were seeking one-man, one-vote and some measure of self-determination.
To my amazement, my brand of Irishness seemed outdated even then. People hated the Irish language because it was compulsory in the schools, despised Irish music as primitive, and all of them seemed to want to go to England to work.
They wanted to know why I wanted to leave a part of the world where you could buy Mars bars, dirty books and condoms and where the dole was a lot better than in the Republic.
I could not get over how pro-British they appeared to be because I did not realise that it was two generations since they had experienced the conditions I had just left. Certainly, no Mars bar could compensate for the kind of treatment we got.
At that point in my life I was a very vocal whinger. It's only now, 30 years on, with Mars bars in every shop, Playboy in every corner shop, condoms in every pub and dole cheques bigger than anywhere in Europe, that I realise just how much damage I must have done to the cause I espoused.
I should have known there was something radically wrong when my partner made it a condition of our marriage that I never, ever, ever, would speak to our children about politics.
I kept my side of the bargain even though I thought it was a bit much coming from a woman whose uncle used to run around Cork with hand grenades in his pocket during the War of Independence.
I now have the standard European 2.5 children with European attitudes, but somehow I managed to let them know that Northern republicans are not evil, job-stealing, mean-minded bigots.
For instance, I managed to convince them last week that Mary McAleese was as Irish as they were. The only difference was that she was burned out of house and home when she was a young one and was discriminated against by the system.
The intervening years made me very smart indeed as I continued to crack the complexity of this society. For instance, I discovered that my accent was no help at all when, as a reporter, I had to phone up Portlaoise Prison to find out if there had been a break-out.
So, over the years, accent softened, I have been privy to what Southerners really feel about Northerners, and particularly Northern republicans. I gather that we are unmanageable, different, ignorant, savage, greedy, as-bad-as-the-Orangemen, and we will never be satisfied.
I gather we are also too cute for our own good, not really interested in gaining our freedom. We steal jobs from people down here, get our cars for next to nothing and have a wonderful health service up there.
The one insult none of us can take, though, is to suggest that we are not Irish. In fact, this goes to the very core of the whole Irish question.
The truth is that, because of our experience, we are the "super-Celts" of this country, perhaps even the last Celts on this island.
Unlike the rest of the island, Ulster held its Celtic fabric together until after the plantation. That is not too long ago in terms of history and 500 years after the rest of the country had been subdued.
The Ulster Irish have been asserting their Irishness ever since, impolitely, through violence but also through the other forms of Irish culture which have been under attack and suspicion by the other community.
Unfortunately for the Irish, the Northern unionists are "super-Brits", trying to impress on their motherland just how British they really are. Hence all the flag-waving and protestations of loyalty.
Both communities are floating away in a time-warp while England and the Republic get on with life, hoping that their awful cousins will go away and sort something out.
Dana and Mary McAleese have stepped out of that chaotic place, but I assure you they are as Irish as they can be.
As for the Sinn Fein allegations made against Mary McAleese, I would have thought that a real democrat would urge everyone to vote Sinn Fein to strengthen the hand of Gerry Adams against the hawks in his movement.
But that is probably the perverted thinking of a Northerner who would prefer a peaceful solution to the Northern problem.
But as we Northerners say: "The only thing worse than the landlord is the landlord's dog."
I hear a lot of barking.