It is almost incredible to reflect that today marks the eighth anniversary of the Belfast Agreement - and more than a little sad. Incredible, because for all the interminable political disputation in and about Northern Ireland, so much has already been achieved to transform the lives of the peoples and communities there. And sad, because the promise of that Good Friday morning has been so slow to realise, leaving so much still to do to liberate those same peoples and communities from a culture of conflict and sectarianism embodied in the very "peace" walls which still divide and separate so many of them.
We are entitled to celebrate the fact that the relationship between Ireland and the UK has in many real respects never been better. Yet it is a standing affront, surely, to all democrats that Irish and British citizens live on a part of this island in a near-apartheid state of separate track development. Our two countries share the challenges of globalisation, of spreading democracy, and upholding the values of pluralism and inclusivity in a new era of international terrorism. Yet in Northern Ireland unionists, republicans and nationalists are unable to agree the basis of a fully participatory democracy firmly rooted in a commitment to the exclusively peaceful pursuit of political goals, and, above all, in respect for the legitimacy of the state and the rule of law.
These were the imperatives which drove Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to devote such an extraordinary amount of time and effort to the negotiations which preceded the Good Friday accord. And the same remarkable sense of urgency (for who, really, could have expected two prime ministers to maintain such commitment?) saw them back in Armagh last Thursday, setting their latest "deadline" for power-sharing devolution, encouraging and cajoling the parties to finally leave the past behind.
Weariness and a certain cynicism now greet attempts by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to force the pace, not least among the Northern Ireland politicians. We have been here - at Mr Blair's famous "fork in the road" and "moment of decision" - many times before. Yet the same politicians, on all sides, should reflect that there was something authentic about Mr Blair's tacit admission that even he and the Taoiseach are running out of steam. Mr Ahern is facing into an election next year, while Mr Blair has vowed not to fight another and must eventually begin to address the matter of the Labour succession.
Before the same politicians consider their prospects in playing that emerging situation long, they should also reflect that opportunities can be lost, that future national and international leaders are likely to turn an increasingly deaf ear to the politics of permanent opposition and confrontation. And that the losers will be the very people whose authority they so readily invoke and in whose interests they purport to act. Locked behind the peace walls, they might yet know more of the same, if not worse, and they all deserve better.