Editing Mary McAleese (section)

==Brexit==
In June 2016, McAleese urged the British to vote to remain in the [[EU]]. McAleese warned that Britain's departure could result in the return of border controls on the island of Ireland and cause a "potential drift" in the peace process.  McAleese said the "chances of customs controls being reconstituted are probably greater as they had been eliminated by EU laws, not Anglo-Irish efforts". McAleese challenged claims by [[Boris Johnson]] and [[Michael Gove]] who frequently repeated claims that the position on the island of Ireland would not change.  McAleese said, "I don't know that to be (true) and they do not know that".<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/09/mary-mcaleese-leave-vote-border-controls-eu-referendum|title = Mary McAleese: Leave vote could bring return of border controls|newspaper = The Guardian|date = 9 June 2016|last1 = O'Carroll|first1 = Lisa|last2 = McDonald|first2 = Henry|access-date = 27 November 2019|archive-date = 8 January 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200108142154/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/09/mary-mcaleese-leave-vote-border-controls-eu-referendum|url-status = live}}</ref>

In 2017, McAleese described [[Brexit]] as like "pulling a tooth with 10,000 roots". She said that Northern Ireland will be the only part of the UK that will share a land border with an EU state post-Brexit and she feared that checks between [[Northern Ireland]] and the [[Republic of Ireland]] would be an inevitable consequence of the UK leaving EU. McAleese said "the lawyer in me says our migration controls are very different, and they are going to be if Britain is no longer part of the EU, and if they tighten the migration controls it won't be enough that I'm entitled to use the Common Travel Area...how are they going to differentiate between me, the person who is entitled to plead the Common Travel Areas, and the person say from France or Germany or Poland who's going to cross the road at Newry, or Derry? My view is that sooner or later the pressure will come to make it an ID card phenomenon...I don't see, in the long run, how we'd get around that".<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-41056371|title = Border checks are inevitable – McAleese|work = BBC News|date = 25 August 2017|access-date = 27 November 2019|archive-date = 10 April 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210410184838/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-41056371|url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="donegaldaily.com">{{Cite web| url=https://www.donegaldaily.com/2017/08/27/brexit-varadkar-confident-of-no-passport-control-at-border-in-response-to-mcaleeses-fears/| title=Brexit: Varadkar "confident" of no passport control at border in| date=27 August 2017| access-date=27 November 2019| archive-date=3 August 2020| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803233913/https://www.donegaldaily.com/2017/08/27/brexit-varadkar-confident-of-no-passport-control-at-border-in-response-to-mcaleeses-fears/| url-status=live}}</ref>[[Taoiseach]] [[Leo Varadkar]] responded to McAleese's concerns saying "I understand her concerns but it is one area that I am very sure about that's that there won't be a requirement to produce a passport to travel to Northern Ireland".<ref name="donegaldaily.com"/>

On 29 March 2019, McAleese addressed the Brexit Institute at DCU. She said "The process of Brexit has been like watching a political form of necrotising fasciitis as it has devoured time, effort, goodwill, patience, reputations, relationships, engendering huge volumes of work, of anxiety and again, no obvious end in sight.  We know that it has rendered the word 'meaningful' completely meaningless."  She said "I am heart sorry to see the UK go, to leave the EU, things will not be the same.  The future experience will not be the one we envisaged. I harboured a hope that somehow, the United Kingdom would step back from the brink and recommit to the ideal of the European Union, in my view the greatest and the noblest political undertaking ever envisaged and realised in human history.  That's a description that is unlikely to ever be attached to Brexit."<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.dcu.ie/news/news/2019/Mar/Mary-McAleese-addresses-DCU-Brexit-Institute.shtml|title = Mary McAleese addresses DCU Brexit Institute &#124; DCU|date = 29 March 2019|access-date = 27 November 2019|archive-date = 17 November 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191117131956/https://www.dcu.ie/news/news/2019/Mar/Mary-McAleese-addresses-DCU-Brexit-Institute.shtml|url-status = live}}</ref>