One fruit of the Belfast Agreement was the founding by Barry Douglas of Camerata Ireland, an orchestra of young professional musicians North and South (patrons, President Mary McAleese and Queen Elizabeth), writes Martin Mansergh
On November 29th, they will perform three Mozart piano concertos in the National Concert Hall, in honour of the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth.
Without prejudice to opposed constitutional positions, the agreement encourages people of different traditions to work together in ways they feel comfortable with over and above formal requirements. Problems and difficulties in the peace process are still plentiful. Barriers are also falling.
The DUP's engagement with the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body in Killarney broke one such barrier, and the body holding its autumn meeting in Belfast breaks another.
The meeting of Orange Order leaders with Catholic Primate Archbishop Brady was a notable first, acting as a prelude to a march deal between parade organisers and residents in North Belfast. It is a pity Dr Paisley, in his dual role as a political leader, could not meet Archbishop Brady as a religious one. It is also a pity, given the importance of leadership example in dealing with the huge problem of sectarianism, that some Presbyterian moderators still feel unable to justify participating in religious meetings or ceremonies that include the Roman Catholic Church.
General reaction to public incidents of intercommunion and concelebration, strongly rebuked in particular by Catholic authorities as premature, shows the desire by many to share worship more fully on special occasions.
To find a sound basis on which this might be done, without obliterating legitimate differences, is something that should engage ecumenical church statesmen as well as theologians. In the speeches of his early pontificate, Pope John Paul II seemed to recognise other churches, not just ecclesial communities.
A clear determination is needed by government and society to ensure that democratic politics prevails, not hardline positions. Coming up to an election here, the desire of nearly all political parties to gain power is not in doubt. In Northern Ireland, many seem to prefer to have no power, than to have to share it, no matter what the safeguards, including the IRA's effective retirement. A unionist decision not to work Northern Ireland as a political entity would probably have few immediate adverse consequences, but often the terms of engagement disimprove over time.
We are fortunate in the different leaders we have, that there is little here conducive to a relapse into armed conflict, as has happened between Israel and Hamas, or the Sinhalese government and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, or between different factions in East Timor.
It is a contemptible abuse of anonymity to make accusations designed to feed paranoia, destabilise the peace process, and encourage murderous feuding. The war for the likes of former security agent "Martin Ingram" is clearly far from over. It is obvious he has no personal knowledge of Martin McGuinness. He has wildly overplayed his hand in claiming that such a key former IRA leader was somehow working for the British.
David Adams's regrets about the impossibility of a shared history (9th June) require more nuance. There should be debate as well as consensus about history in a democratic society. Irish historians North and South and indeed other specialists in Ireland have shown considerable ability to transcend cruder unionist and nationalist narratives.
At a popular level, a simple moral tale remains the temptation. Ulster-Scots publications are beginning to commemorate the epic of the settlements that arrived from 1606, with scarcely a thought for the moral issues of confiscation and dispossession.
Equally, many commemorating the quartercentenary of the flight of the earls next year may be tempted to ignore any positive contribution to the North of Ireland made by the settler population in the intervening four centuries.
From 1914 on, when partition became virtually inevitable, and especially from 1921 to 1968, the two parts of the island did have separate histories. Since 1968, the Northern Ireland conflict and the peace process have been an integral part of the Republic's history, though unrelated developments here have not impinged to the same extent on Northern Ireland. The Belfast Agreement means more of the future will be shared in common.
Whether one likes it or not, the population in the South, regardless of background, have a pride in their State including, with some exceptions, its origins. Similarly, unionists have a pride in Northern Ireland and their British identity. Ambitions for the future where, in theory at least, options are wide open, need to take all that into account. The radical Tone formula of abolishing differences is less likely to succeed than freely acknowledging and incorporating them into any future scenario.
One might wish for a different past. The extent to which historians can give us one, while not without possibilities, is limited. It is more within our power to give ourselves a different future. For some decades post-independence, unionists felt they had little to fear from North-South comparisons. Today, the Republic's star burns brightly, but without the means of absorbing the North in its present state, and having renounced any right or desire to so attempt without willing consent, which would have endangered peace and stability.
Nearly all nationalists vote for parties that in principle support a united Ireland. In accepting key elements of the Belfast Agreement, unionists have to some degree tacitly modified their policy of separate development. How all that evolves will determine whether and when a sufficient number might ever be persuaded to join in the creation of a newly-founded all-Ireland State.
Such an outcome would best do justice to the protestant tradition in Ireland, including its rights and interests, while releasing nationalists, held apart against their will for several generations, to rejoin the rest of Ireland.