Former president Mary McAleese has labelled those involved in recent anti-immigration protests in Belfast as "bizarre attention seekers".
Ms McAleese condemned those involved in the disorder and violence saying, "they are small in number, but very loud and very loud-mouthed".
"What comes from their mouths are views and values that are completely opposed to everything we in Ireland stand for, everything that we have fought for, everything that we have built and created over years and generations," she said.
Speaking ahead of her podcast, Changing Times - The Allenwood Conversations, being broadcast from the Mindfield area at Electric Picnic on Sunday, the former president said she was "appalled" by the scenes in Belfast in recent weeks.
She said: "Our suffering has intensified in us a passion for the underdog, a passion for the person who's excluded...what does sectarianism do? What does racism do? What does it do to be misogynistic, to be homophobic? It hurts. It hurts people.
"So when I see those pictures on the one hand, I'm scandalized by them. I'm appalled by them. And then I look at the other side of the street and I see the people who are standing up to them, who are much larger in number."
Ms McAleese praised those who had taken part in counter protests.
"It is wonderful to see the people who now will come out of their houses and stand up and be counted," she said.
Ms McAleese expressed excitement ahead of her podcast's appearance at Electric Picnic this weekend.
"I did not expect that when I got my bus pass that I would be invited to the Electric Picnic!" she said today, speaking from the site where media were invited to take a first look at what will be on offer.
"It is fantastic and amazing. So glad I'm here. I'm going to be trying to see and soak up as much as I possibly can."
