`We've done our bit," said my father-in-law Frank Kelly, an old republican. "We made sure the Irish could run their own show. What those who come after us make of the country is up to them."
I was reminded of his expectations the other day when Sean O Mordha wrote to me about reaction to his immensely popular story of the Irish state, Seven Ages.
"One thing came through in all the letters from viewers," he said. "They know they have a state and they are citizens and can still decide their destiny. All is not lost." My father-in-law didn't talk about it in a sentimental way or, as some of the old comrades did, as if life stood still once the fighting ended. He took much of what followed with the phlegmatic air of a born Londoner.
Because of his matter-of-fact attitude, his accounts of what happened usually steered clear of heroics and high drama. Yes, he agreed, it would have been better if James Connolly's had been the dominant voice in 1916. But it wasn't, so a social and economic revolution was out of the question.
The comrades who believed that life stood still took power and held on too long. The changes, as Connolly had feared, had more to do with the colour of flags and letter-boxes than with the nature of society.
The more idealistic went on believing in a republic of fierce independence, egalitarian leanings and international alliances reflecting Ireland's leadership in a changing world.
As for the later generations: there have been successes which can be set to the credit of politicians, public servants and our pragmatic combination of public and private enterprise, native and foreign.
Our course has been erratic, from the self-inflicted damage of civil war through hopeless decades to unimagined prosperity. And most are impressed by the success, as is clear from the levels of satisfaction with the Government.
But something is missing here, an absence simply noted by puzzled commentators who ask, "Why aren't we happy?" as they wander on to the next dizzy celebration.
It may be that we (or enough of us to make a difference) haven't had much to do with the growth of prosperity, have only the vaguest hope of sharing in it and have little or no idea where we go from here.
The unease isn't confined to bus and train drivers. It's felt by doctors, nurses and teachers; by those who share Liz McManus's conviction about the health service we could (but do not) have; by everyone who worries about the housing crisis.
The level of undecided respondents in Irish Times/MRBI polls gives some indication of attitudes to politics, though not the whole story.
But if only one in five, as the poll shows, failed to turn out, electoral politics would be in a healthy state. The real rate of abstention is much higher: in the 1997 general election it was more than one in three.
And those least likely to vote are the 18-to 24-year-olds. In the latest poll, almost 30 per cent of them are among the undecided, which could mean that as many as half won't turn out next time.
We have happily exchanged a degree of sovereignty for membership of the European Union and entered a new relationship with the United Kingdom in the hope of achieving a durable settlement in Northern Ireland.
It's in our domestic affairs that real dissatisfaction has been generated. The sense of ownership which Frank Kelly and his comrades assumed would flow from the establishment of the new state has diminished.
The ownership they hoped for would not have been exclusive. It would not have been confined to one class or centre of power. It would have been open and accountable and it would have informed our attitudes to our communal property, culture and the environment.
If this sense of ownership had existed we would have been more confident and more at ease in our attitudes to immigrants. The feeling that we protect "our own" by attacking some of the most vulnerable people in the world turns the republican ideal on its head.
The republicans of Frank's generation built fragile alliances with the Soviet Union and with an incipient nationalist movement in Egypt. They took courage from events in South Africa and the poems of Walt Whitman. Connolly was a member of the Wobblies, the International Workers of the World.
Those who rage about "our own" are often those who have never lifted a finger or raised a voice in defence of Travellers, the homeless, the old, the ill or the unemployed. Their concern would be more convincing if, indeed, it started at home. It's the consistency of their records that makes more convincing the leadership of a Michael D. Higgins, a Pat Rabbitte or a Des Geraghty.
On socio-economic issues, church leaders such as the bishops Willie Walsh and Walton Empey are, as usual, imaginative and humane. And the Sean Healys, Stanislaus Kennedys and Peter McVerrys fight on and on and on.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are on a slow bicycle race to reform, anxious not to disturb their most backward supporters but hoping not to be shown up as unwilling or unable to change.
Bertie Ahern chose the annual Fianna Fail outing to Arbour Hill as the venue for his latest denial and assertion of straight dealing. The denial didn't convince the public: in a Sunday Independent/IMS Poll, 46 per cent said they didn't believe him, and Fianna Fail's support has dropped four points since February.
But Ahern went further and claimed ownership of the tribunals: "I was the Taoiseach that set up these tribunals, nobody else. I and my Government colleagues set up these tribunals along with our colleagues, Progressive Democrats and Mary Harney . . ."
Balderdash. The Oireachtas decides when and on what terms tribunals are established. And it is to the Oireachtas that the tribunals report. Ahern fought tooth and nail against including the Ansbacher accounts in one case and Ray Burke's affairs in another.
But amnesia is a terrible thing - and it's contagious. Dermot Ahern says he doesn't know how much the trade unions contribute to the Labour Party. He could have looked up the published accounts: the total for 1999 was £36,309. Sure he'd lose it in a tot.
And one of the officials in Peter Mandelson's entourage has discovered that Brian Cowen's argument on the North is "presented with all the subtlety and open-mindedness that one would expect from a member of Sinn Fein".
Really? As open-minded as that?