RITE AND REASON:RECONCILIATION WAS always the great article of faith in all religions. On this island it has been much talked about with little follow-through, writes Patsy McGarry.
Now, though, good things are happening. It is as though a long ice age has been touched by welcome warmth.
On January 24th last, in an address to the Old Athlone historical society, former deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party John Taylor said he had flown with Aer Lingus on its first flight from Belfast to London, just 10 days before.
"Such an event could not have been anticipated 10 years ago," he said, referring to the Belfast Agreement and the EU open skies policy as having made the new Aer Lingus route possible.
He may also have been referring to himself. Relations on this island and between these islands "are now improving with unexpected speed; we will all benefit from this," he said.
"Let us all rejoice in the new atmosphere of mutual recognition and co-operation and encourage it further in the years ahead."
Who would have expected this of John Taylor, a man who in 1972 just survived an Official IRA assassination attempt?
More recently, on February 18th, the same spirit of generosity was evident from the southern part of this island when a delegation of Roscommon councillors and staff visited Flanders to honour and retrieve from oblivion those 330 young men from the county killed in the first World War. They visited five cemeteries,including the German cemetery at Langemark.
Towards the end of what was described as "a pilgrimage" by Roscommon county manager John Tiernan, he and Mayor of Roscommon Cllr John Kelly laid a poppy wreath at the round tower in the Ireland Peace Park at Messines.
A card attached read: "Thank you for your efforts and sacrifice. You have helped to shape the Ireland, the Europe and the freedom that we enjoy today. From the people of County Roscommon."
The park commemorates the 69,947 men of the 16th Irish Division, the 36th Ulster Division (both at Flanders), and the 10th Irish Division (at Salonika), who were killed, are missing or were wounded in the Great War.
Tiernan spoke of the occasion as being "a day filled with emotion and reverence". The young men whose graves they visited were "lads of footballing age who . . . hugged their mothers and left Roscommon, never to come home again. Perhaps never to be found again".
It was fitting, he said, that people from their county "should come out here and bring their memory back to life, and pay our respects".
Kelly said "few of us understood what went on out here . . . those things were not taught at school". He was "proud as mayor to be here on behalf of the people of Roscommon, to honour our deceased".
One grave visited by the delegation was that of Martin O'Callaghan, a young man from near Castlerea who was killed on October 22nd, 1917. O'Callaghan's brother John died from wounds 10 months later, also at Flanders, on August 28th 1918. Meanwhile, at home another O'Callaghan brother became involved in the struggle for Irish independence. He was interned at the Curragh and released in 1921.
You might say the story of the O'Callaghan brothers is a story of the tragic history of Ireland in the 20th century, as played out in one Roscommon family.
Two went to war and died for the freedom of "poor Catholic Belgium", as encouraged by their political and church leaders, while another fought at home for Irish freedom. The men killed at Flanders were "forgotten" by us, while the brother who did his bit for "the cause" was celebrated.
Later that evening, and on behalf of the people of Roscommon, Kelly recited Laurence Bynion's The Fallen at the Menin gate in Ypres. As echoes of the Last Post drifted around its great arch, commemorating 54,896 missing first World War soldiers, he read:
They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs Correspondent ofThe Irish Times .