Mary Holland was out of the country last week but was able to read the series "Northern Ireland - a cold place for unionists". The reporting conveyed, vividly, the blind anger and tribal fears in working class Protestant communities and the growing sense among moderate, middle class unionists that the working out of the Belfast Agreement has, to put it mildly, done their community no favours.
The presence of "former terrorists" in government, the loss of the name of the RUC, the erosion of British symbols around the place: these were repeatedly cited as some of the ingredients of the bitter pill which unionists have had to swallow. What surprised me was that relatively little emphasis was placed on the fear that must lie at the heart of political unionism's misgivings about the agreement - that it is a plot jointly conceived by London and Dublin for "trundling unionists into a united Ireland".
Prof Paul Bew, in a perceptive contribution to the series, remarked that the British state is puzzled at the failure of unionists to celebrate the gains made by their community in the agreement. He pointed in particular, to the enshrinement of the principle of consent in relation to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.
The problem with this, as Prof Bew knows very well, is that it does not offer the finality for which unionists yearn. There is little security to be found in the principle of consent if you belong to a community whose young people are continuing to leave the province and the demography shows that there could well be a nationalist majority within 20 years.
We know the agreement is built on a necessary fudge. The British and Irish governments prefer to describe it as an historic compromise which brought peace and political dialogue back to Northern Ireland. This was achieved by putting the issue of Irish unity on the back burner, indefinitely.
But that does not mean the issue has gone away. Not for unionists, not for Sinn Féin.
It's probably true that most people who voted to support the agreement in this State saw it as an honourable effort to give both communities in the North the chance to live in peace. If the removal of Articles 2 and 3 offered reassurance to the unionists in exchange for a square deal for the nationalist community, so be it. It was time to draw a line under what had been a tragic past and allow the future to look after itself.
IT MIGHT be that peace, the building of closer economic links between Dublin and Bel- fast would persuade a necessary number of unionists that, at some undefined time in the future, they would be better off in a united Ireland.
On the other hand, it could turn out that a substantial number of Catholics, particularly those who availed of the economic and political opportunities offered under the new dispensation, would prefer to remain linked to the United Kingdom.
The trouble is neither side quite believes either of these scenarios. Or rather, each suspects that the story which favours the other's long term aspirations is the real masterplan.
They read that Peter Mandelson, a former Secretary of State, has said he would not be surprised to see Gerry Adams as taoiseach of a united Ireland in the not-too-distant future. Understandably, given that Mr Mandelson remains a close confidante of Mr Blair's, they invest this with what is possibly quite unwarranted significance.
In the same way, the many so-called concessions to the nationalist community are seen as evidence that London has lost any appetite it ever had for preserving the union and is intent on helping the Irish Government to bring about reunification.
The fact that most politicians in Dublin would be horrified at the prospect of taking on the economic and political problems of the North is not a view that cuts much ice with unionists. It has, however, created difficulties for Sinn Féin.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness sold the agreement to Republican activists as part of a strategy that would lead to a united Ireland. As I understood it when it was first explained to me by Mitchel McLaughlin just after the first IRA ceasefire, the argument went like this: both communities in Northern Ireland needed peace and stability to learn to live and work together.
THE Republican movement did not want a situation where a unionist minority felt it had been coerced into a united Ireland. What was needed was a period of transition in which sufficient trust and political links could be established to reassure unionists about their future in a united Ireland.
It hasn't worked out like that. Unionists appear to be more hostile than ever, not only to the idea of a united Ireland but to the Belfast Agreement. But, from the point of view of many Republican activists it seems that progress on many of the core issues has been painfully slow.
Much more important, the issue of a united Ireland seems to have disappeared off the political agenda. Earlier this month Mitchel McLaughlin told a meeting of Sinn Féin's elected representatives that the party must use its increasing electoral strength to reopen debate on Irish unity. By this he meant holding discussions with unionists and other opponents of constitutional change that would lead to the dismantling of partition. This was, he said, an issue that "can no longer be ignored" It will be interesting to see how politicians in this State react.