The Last Straw: The last and - until this week - only time I'd visited Derry, I didn't have a chance to walk the famous walls. I meant to, of course, writes Frank McNally.
But you know how it happens: other things get in the way, in this case the worst outbreak of rioting the city had ever seen. Calling it the worst rioting ever is saying something, in Derry. But it was the RUC who said it, and no-one contradicted the opinion.
It was July, 1996, the weekend of the first Drumcree, and it was a tense time across the North. Derry wrote the book on rioting, but the book had been out of print for a while, and nobody expected trouble there until August, when the Apprentice Boys would be up the walls, as usual.
Anyway, when a rally in support of the Garvaghy Road residents broke up quietly, most of the journalists in Derry went home. Only myself and a reporter from a rival Dublin newspaper hung around. And we were doing one last tour of an apparently sleepy city when - at midnight - all hell broke loose.
It started at the wall's Castle Gate, from where, when we arrived, police were firing plastic bullets out, at people who were throwing stones in. This was something of a shock to me - the nearest I'd ever been to a riot was when I invaded the pitch at Croke Park once after a match. But my colleague, who was from this area and took to riot situations like a duck to water, noted that we were on the wrong side of the gate, strategically, and suggested we move.
It dawned slowly on me that he was proposing we cross in front of the gate, out of which a stream of plastic bullets was emerging. I inquired of him - although not in these exact words - whether he was by any chance joking. But he explained patiently that the bullets were fired in twos, and there was always an interval for reloading. So, not wishing to be called a chicken by a reporter from a rival Dublin newspaper, I took a deep breath and ran.
And from the other side, we watched the riot develop until it ended, 900 petrol bombs (the RUC's estimate), 800 plastic bullets (independent witnesses'), and six hours later, in the Bogside.
It repeated itself over several nights, by which time the world's media had descended on Derry, and I'd turned into a grizzled war veteran, wryly watching from a barstool as yet another camera crew arrived. The rioting took the same course each evening, but the third night was the worst. By then the city was gripped with rumours - as early as the 1960s, rumour-production had replaced shirt-making as Derry's main industry - that the guns were coming out in the Bogside.
They weren't, but when the army rushed the rioters, as usual, they were clearly nervous.
It was then that I noticed a bad habit some rioters have of mingling with journalists while fleeing the scene of disorder.
You'd be standing around during the long wait while nothing happened, and then suddenly you'd have to run, and there'd be rioters running with you. I remember a few of us got trapped in a dark alley as soldiers advanced, and I calculated that our group comprised five journalists and two unidentified young people who smelled of petrol. This is always a delicate social situation. But happily, the journalist beside me shouted the magic password "BBC!" and we were allowed to disperse peacefully.
That was seven years ago, and back in the city this week for the Saville Tribunal, it was clear that there's been a lot of confidence-building since. The building I stayed in, a new hotel only a stone's throw - pardon the pun - from that alleyway, is more confident than most. But the city was so calm this time that I managed to circumnavigate the walls three times.
I could see the Apprentice Boys' point. It's a lovely walk: only a mile but, with all the ups and downs, excellent aerobic exercise. Third time around, however, when I still hadn't seen anybody else walking there, I began to wonder if it was illegal.
In any other city, the walls would be lined with cafés and bookstalls. But the tour is still pleasant, if you don't mind feeling like an eccentric.
The best things about the walls - and indeed about the people of Derry - are their often breathtaking views. And yet, not even from up there could you see any evidence that there's an election campaign going on in the North. Then again, I went to bed early every night. Maybe campaigning only starts at midnight, and I missed it.