The Protestant reformed church in Bordeaux is in a complex of buildings known as the Fort d'Hâ, which has a dreadful history.
It was the headquarters of the Gestapo during the war, and the departure point for the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps.
During the service a fortnight ago, the minister inquired what countries people were from. Afterwards, a businessman from Enniskillen approached us. We talked first about daughters at college studying on the Continent and then about the city.
Bordeaux is a town with both royalist and republican associations. The superb classical waterfront was designed by the royal architect Gabriel. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs contains mementos of 19th century legitimism. The last surviving heir of the dethroned Charles X, his grandson, was first known as the Duc de Bordeaux.
The Monument des Girondins in the Parc des Quinconces honours the moderate republicans from the Bordeaux region, whose leadership was annihilated by the Jacobins during the terror.
The two statues in the park are of the humanist late-16th century essay-writer, Montaigne, and of the magistrate and political philosopher Montesquieu, adopted forerunners of the liberal republican tradition.
My Enniskillen acquaintance remarked that republicanism was pretty well discredited in Ireland, after 30 years of violence. I pointed out that there was more than one form of republicanism, and that I was a member of a party that called itself republican. While his view was not surprising, nor is it confined to one community, the implications of it for political advance are not willingly acknowledged or faced up to.
One is that republicans should focus more on the success story, which is this Republic, and less on still trying to justify a ruthless and bloody armed struggle, which claimed so many victims and alienated most people, North and South.
The "Colombia Three" since 2001 have added nothing to the peace credentials of the republican movement, or assisted the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
The original expedition was a piece of ill-judged adventurism, one of a number of activities presumed to fall below the political radar screen. The arrests in August 2001 may have been intentionally publicised by British and American intelligence, after it became clear that the leaders of the republican movement were not going to implement in any hurry the Weston Park understandings, as far as they went, on decommissioning and participation in policing. They lost valuable support on Capitol Hill.
The "Colombia Three" was a first high-profile incident at that time that highlighted continued IRA activity, leading that October to the collapse of the Executive.
That it is still nowhere near being restored four years later is an indictment of wasted opportunity.
What exactly the three men were doing in Colombia remains a matter of speculation. Bird-watching was the satirists' suggestion. Observing the peace process by invitation, which by 2001 was collapsing, is their own explanation. Training Farc rebels in the lethal use of mortars is the very damaging but unproven Colombian and Western intelligence accusation, eagerly taken up by unionists for propaganda purposes. New technology from somewhere, but not necessarily the IRA, is in use in Colombia, causing death and horrific injuries.
A deeper question is to explain the republican movement's past infatuation with one of the most vicious guerrilla struggles in the world. Che Guevara it is not. Only last week, Farc is reported to have massacred 13 coca farm workers and their cook, presumably in order to seize their crop. They kidnap people for long periods, including, since 2002, former Green presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. They are financed on a vast scale by drugs. One cover the "Colombia Three" did not travel under was "direct action against drugs". Neutrality and strict non-interference in the conflicts of distant countries, except through the UN, has much to recommend it.
The trial proceedings were widely reported in Ireland. Observers included my colleague Senator Mary White. The trial evidence was not impressive, and the judge acquitted them, which in Ireland would be final. The reversal by a higher court sitting in secret was not transparently explained or justified. Even a group of pro-government Colombian businessmen at a study conference in UCD in 2002 expressed little faith in their justice system.
It is easy now for the Colombian government to huff and puff, but they did not prevent the men being released on bail pending appeal. Did the authorities really expect or want them to hang around waiting to be put back in jail, with their lives and health at serious risk? In practice, no Irish Government concerned for the safety of its citizens, however annoyed, is likely to return them to that prison regime, nor are our courts, which take no direction from telephone opinion polls in Sunday newspapers.
The State cannot be accused of harbouring terrorists, unless people have been clearly convicted according to a recognised process. Other than for illegalities arising or demonstrable here, the question of serving Colombian sentences in Ireland hardly arises in the circumstances.
The rule of law is not about making up the law as we go along, nor is it about the politicisation of our justice system.
Ireland values good relations with the United States, but we are not an American satrapy. How long would it take to extradite an American citizen to Colombia?
Arguably, the three are punished already. Two years in a Colombian jail is the equivalent of much longer in Mountjoy, Portlaoise or Castlerea. The three will not be able to travel elsewhere safely under any names.
Subjecting Charlie Bird to a mystery tour in pursuit of an interview was out of place, if the IRA has ceased all activities. Sinn Féin prides itself on being a revolutionary party, still militant without being militaristic.
The question in other people's minds is how soon it wants to be regarded as a serious and trustworthy party.