In these important times, as we strive for understanding between the two traditions on this island, it may be helpful to reflect on other ancient feuds which have been resolved through dialogue.
In this respect, I suggest that one of the best models we have of peaceful conflict resolution is the region known as Cavan-Monaghan. Here, among the rolling drumlins of south Ulster, two mutually distrustful peoples have put behind them centuries of ill-feeling and now share a political constituency in peace and harmony, barring the odd incident at the weekends.
As with many of the world's trouble spots, the conflict between Cavan people and Monaghan people is a mystery to outsiders. To the casual observer, there is no difference between the two. Even many of those living in the region would be hard put to explain why they hate the others, and would be quite willing to bury the hatchet once and for all. Then the Ulster Championship comes round again and we all remember. GAA is probably the biggest single reason for the age-old enmity. For most of this century, Cavan dominated Ulster football, and the downtrodden Monaghan underclass could only look on in sullen resentment. Then in 1969 - a crucial year in the growth of political consciousness in Monaghan - the sun set on Cavan's 47 provincial titles, and decades of failure followed. This and Monaghan's modest success in the late 1970s and 1980s led to a growing clamour for parity of esteem, something Cavan supremacists still find hard to swallow. It is a sad fact that, even now, many people in the Cavan community have not learned to accept that the days of their ascendancy are gone.
Now that the old resentments have been masked by political agreement, football is the most obvious way in which the competing traditions can show their colours. (The question of colours is also confusing for outsiders: for the record, Cavan wear the despised blue and white, whereas we wear white and blue. There's a world of difference). But football aside, it is difficult to point to a single other identifying trait visible to the uninitiated. It is true that Cavan people alone have a reputation for meanness. This is often summed up in the suggestion that they eat dinner out of a drawer, so they can put it away quickly if visitors call. I have to say as a Monaghan person that I have never witnessed somebody from Cavan eating out of a drawer. And I'd add, out of the sense of fairness that comes naturally to my people, that the unusually high incidence of thumb injuries in Cavan could have any number of explanations. In fact, Monaghan people are every bit as thrifty as their neighbours, a fact of which the county's thriving poultry industry is the prime example. In poultry farming, everything is used for profitable gain: chickens produce (1) eggs, which are sold to the shops; (2) droppings, which are sold as fertiliser; and (3) feathers which, upon the chicken's demise, are sold for stuffing soft furniture. Upon the same demise, of course, the chicken becomes food itself. But the really clever bit is that the other possible side-product of businesses such as this - a reputation for being tight with money - is passed on to Cavan people, free of charge.
And yet, in spite of all the similarities, there has always been this fundamental sense of otherness to which both sides cling. As a child, you didn't ask questions. You learned early on that there was an "us and them" situation and, thereafter, you were just glad to be us. This was still more true if you lived near the county border, where you knew that with a slip of a quill on a 16th-century map, you could have been them. For those of us who grew up near the peaceline, however, the issue was also confused by sexuality. There were many cross-community romances, especially when a theory took hold among my schoolmates that Cavan women were less bound by conventional bourgeois morality. Probably this was just a variation on the rule that the grass is always greener on the other side. But it was exciting to go out with girls from the opposite tradition, especially if it annoyed boys from the opposite tradition. Of course, one never gave a thought then to things such as marriage and children, and the problem of which team they'd be brought up to support.
In any case, most of that is behind us now. Since the 1970s, Cavan and Monaghan have shared a political constituency, with crossborder bodies dedicated to matters of mutual concern - the matter of most concern being how to get money out of Europe. At a more personal level, we each do our bit to increase understanding and avoid creating offence. I even drive a Cavan-registered car (very tight on corners) to show I'm not a bigot. And when Cavan ended their 28year drought by winning the Ulster football title last year, we all cheered them on in the semi-final against Kerry. It's true that we cheered harder once defeat seemed certain. But most of us were genuinely behind them because, as we all said at the time, it's nice to see the weaker teams do well.