A new political idealism was needed in both parts of Ireland, according to the former deputy first minister in the North, Mr Seamus Mallon of the SDLP.
Speaking at University College Dublin, he said the misguided ideals of the past had failed. "It is easy if you are going to use people's emotions," he said.
But hoisting the Union flag or the Tricolour was no longer sufficient.
Conviction was in decline. Unionism was associated with sashes and Lambeg drums; republicanism with dead bodies and blood; loyalism with tattoos and hatred.
The challenge was to create a new idealism, even though peace was considered "wimpish" because you had to say nice things about everybody.
In a lecture sponsored by the Institute for British-Irish Studies and Co-operation Ireland, he said "the great North-South experiment" was how to "get belief back into our lives in terms of political conviction".
It was very difficult to get people to knock on doors at election time if you could not tell them what the basic belief was that you were asking them to support. "You can't smile your way through this one."
Neither unionism nor nationalism could continue unless it got a body of idealism for itself and a belief in the future. How long could unionism "limp along" in a British, six-county context, "knowing full well that Britain somewhere down the line is going".
How long could nationalists limp on in a six-county context? "Does our world stop there?" Did nationalists have to become "some kind of political eunuchs" in a partnership administration?
Things were changing in a fundamental way, and we had to gear ourselves for the future. He was not predicting a 32-county unitary state nor an imminent British withdrawal.
He cited a speech made by former US president Mr Bill Clinton, who told a crowd in Armagh he could go to any trouble spot in the world and say that peace could be achieved there, because it had been achieved in Northern Ireland.
As in early monastic times, Ireland could become an example to the world. Politics was not about "accountancy reports" and blandness; it was something different.
Recalling the day when he and David Trimble were elected to head the Northern Ireland powersharing administration, he said there was no office, no staff, no fax machine and only one telephone. This showed that senior civil servants "didn't particularly want us".