YOU'VE probably heard about Gregory Campbell’s chin-wag with Catherine Connolly when she visited Derry last weekend. “You’re in our country,” Gregory explained to Ireland’s President. “Tonight I’m going to your country.”

President Connolly, I’d say, had no problem with his initial statement (except that NEI isn’t a country),  but she may have suppressed a yawn at Gregory’s revelation that he was heading south later in the day.  Let’s say the President of Ireland probably wasn’t fretting that much about Gregory’s travel plans. But, as always, President Connolly was polite and smiling, the way you might be with a child who tells you he’s going to ride his tricycle  until bedtime. Her only problem might have been whether she should pat Gregory on the head and say “Well done, little man!” or tell him to mind the traffic. 

But since Gregory isn’t six and doesn’t ride a tricycle, he clearly wanted to stir things up a bit.  He wasn’t impolite (he can be, as he was in his famous ‘Can Cocacoalyer’ mockery of the Irish language)  but this time he restrained himself. 

Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for Gregory. I had an extended interview with him back in the day and he was consistently courteous throughout.  Other DUP big shots have been more of a mixed bag. 

Also back in the day I interviewed Sammy Wilson, and while he was as accommodating as I could have wished, I was distracted by a background smell of cat. Sammy, living there and doubtless loving his moggie, didn’t notice it, but I found it seriously distracting. 

Peter Robinson I interviewed at his East Belfast home, and he was courteous and accommodating. We talked on his terrace, and as I remember, were served tea and scones by a smiling Iris (yes, Virginia, back before that unfortunate misunderstanding involving a 19-year-old man and his Lockkeeper’s Inn).

I never did get to interview Ian Paisley but I got the next best thing – I interviewed Paisley’s widow Eileen. She received me in her home – furnished in a manner that was luxurious and traditional – and was the essence of graciousness. She impressed on me that as far as she was concerned, since her girlhood, the very idea of drawing distinctions between Catholics and Protestants was to her baffling. At one point  her daughter Rhonda put her head around the  door and cheerily asked if I’d take a cup of tea.

My final interview with a DUP grandee was with Ian Paisley the Younger.  He kept me kicking my heels in an ante-chamber for half an hour before admitting me to his inner office. Throughout the interview he sat slouched in his chair, and his facial and body language suggested that if a hole had appeared under me and I had plummeted to the earth’s fiery core he would have seen this as an amusing and desirable event.  

Every so often, when I feel in need of cheering up, I watch on YouTube that famous RTÉ Late, Late Show where in 1994 Gerry Adams faced  an ambush panel which included Michael McDowell, Hugh Leonard, Austin Currie and of course Gay Byrne himself. The turning point came when Gerry reminded Gaybo that we all have two personae, the public and the private. "Regardless of my public persona, I privately believe that I’m quite a nice guy, just as you probably think you’re a nice guy,” he told Gaybo. Some in the audience clapped, some cheered, some did both. 

Likewise, President Connolly survived  Gregory’s salvo of  geographical information and is to be commended for not once laughing out loud.