SIPPING from a china teacup, Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien sits in the ornate splendour of Belfast City Hall under portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. "I've come a long way to get here", he says with a wry smile.
Dr O'Brien has come, he says, to stand up and be counted against the Irish peace process, "a crazy project which threatens us all". A special reception has been organised in his honour by the Rev Erie Smyth, DUP Lord Mayor and fire brand fundamentalist.
He presents the former Irish government minister, "a fine fellow unionist", with a Belfast City Council tie and cufflinks. Dr O'Brien is a candidate on the UK Unionist Party's regional list in the forthcoming election.
If the party figures among the top to past the post, Dr O'Brien (78) will be one of its representatives at all party negotiations on June 10th.
At an age when other men prefer more leisurely pursuits, he has opted for the rough and tumble of Northern politics in order to save the Union. The peace process he believes, is being driven by Sinn Fein. The party's aim is the elimination of Northern Ireland and Irish unity by coercion, which he fears will lead to a breakdown in the loyalist ceasefire.
The whole vicious circle will start again tit for tat killings in Belfast and bombs in London and Dublin. "That is what Gerry Adams's Irish peace process has in store for these islands", he says. "All rational Irish people will oppose it.
The UK Unionist Party leader, Mr Bob McCartney, invited Dr O'Brien to contest the election. If he gets to the all party talks, he will make the most of his unrivalled negotiating skills", Mr McCartney says.
Dr O'Brien is taken on a tour of City Hall to admire its grand marble pillars, oil paintings and stained glassed windows. He acknowledges his nationalist family background, including his militant republican aunt, Hannah Sheehy Skeffington.
He says his conversion to unionism started after the Sunningdale talks in 1974, where he was a government negotiator. He is proud now to be associated with a party which is uncompromisingly unionist but non sectarian.
He is led like a guru through the streets of Belfast by his new party colleagues. There is a handshake here and there. A woman with a Harrods bag tells him he is a wonderful man. But most shoppers are uninterested in the canvass.
"The sun is shining. A new hat or summer sandals are the great issues facing the people", says a cynical Mr McCartney. "Why did the suffragettes chain themselves to the railings?" he asks one apathetic woman.
A spotty faced skin head says he is voting Sinn Fein. "You have obviously got brains to match your looks," Mr McCartney quips. The UK Unionist leader, however, has his fans. "You're the lawyer, aren't you? I'll be supporting you," one woman says as she clasps his hands.
A young nationalist asks Mr McCartney why he should trust him after 50 years of unionist misrule at Stormont. Mr McCartney explains that he didn't have it easy either. His father worked in the shipyard, his mother in the mill. He was raised in a wee house on the Shankill.
But the young man is unconvinced. "Some nationalists regurgitate a whole catalogue of ancient wrongs. They have elevated wound licking into an art form," Mr McCartney says, walking away. "That fellow is only about 22. What would he know about 50 years of misrule?".
"Fifty years, is that all? You got off lightly," Dr O'Brien says. "I'm used to hearing about the past 800."