Northern Ireland is close to devolution and a new dawn, the president Mary McAleese claimed tonight.
Other parts of the world where there was only fear, hatred and no end in sight to the violence were looking on she said, to see if the politics of partnership and peace would make it across the line.
She said: "But this is the most liberated and the best educated generation ever to inhabit the island. It has the brain-power to know the past as a mess and the skill to clean the mess up effectively.
"It has the heart power to recognise the loss and waste that come out of conflict and the passion to heal and reconcile."
President McAleese's remarks came as she delivered the annual Tip O'Neill lecture at the University of Ulster's Magee campus in Derry.
Earlier on the city's road to Strabane, army explosives experts defused a device found outside a pub, the Coach Inn at Cloughcor, between Bready and Ballymagorry. Police said they didn't know the intended target, but the device caused an hour's traffic disruption, delaying people keeping hospital appointments, and could have caused injury had it exploded.
Last week in Coleraine, a device was found near the town's courthouse, an incident linked to dissident republicans who have already firebombed stores in Belfast and Newry causing nearly £30 million worth of damage.
President McAleese said Northern Ireland had a strong entrepreneurial tradition, a rich multifaceted culture drawing on the deep wells of Irish, British and Scottish tradition. But just at the point where its most educated generation ever appeared, it slid into the troubles, and never had until now,
the chance to reveal its fullest potential and harness all its talent in a unified, civic society.