I suffer from late-onset leisure cycling. Some of my parishioners consider it a form of madness. The French have a more optimistic view - they talk of la sagesse de la bicyclette, the wisdom of the bicycle, deriving from the combination of solitude and movement.

I'm not sure if the French would accept that cycling in a crosswind might contribute to lateral thinking, but a few days ago I was pedalling in the wind and the rain from St Johnston towards Strabane (due south into Northern Ireland). I was reflecting on the agreement and the then coming referendum. Instead of thinking of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, I found myself thinking of Michael Gill and Liam Miller.

The context was a developing publishing industry in Ireland in the 1970s, and the founding of the Irish Book Publishers' Association (Cumann Leabharfhoilsitheoiri Eireann, known as CLE). A number of us were just beginning, and desperately wanted to learn the trade. Several conferences were organised, and the experienced professionals like Michael Gill and Liam Miller shared their expertise with the rest of us.

I was amazed that these hardheaded businessmen shared their trade secrets with their competitors. They had the generosity to want the rest of us to become successful publishers, and the maturity to realise that if they shared their power and knowledge and contributed to the growth of the Irish publishing industry, they and all of us would eventually reap the benefits. CLE sparked a new momentum in Irish publishing.

The need for the broader perspective is a key factor in the Northern Ireland multi-party agreement also. I must confess that I had doubts early on about David Trimble's capacity for the broad sweep of political landscaping. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of his lack of expertise; it was more that I was afraid that his legal expertise and mindset might restrict his imagination. It is possible for a legal mind to be imprisoned by a structured illusion which is logically perfect but which leads nowhere.

David Trimble, in the working out of the agreement, has broken out of that narrow perspective, and has grasped a wider reality. He is right that the agreement provides the only genuine guarantee for his constituents, because the society which he holds dear can only survive if it becomes a society in which his political opponents can feel comfortable and secure. It is a pity for unionism that not even all of his own party have been able to make the leap of faith along with him.

A question raised in some discussions about the agreement goes something like this: "How can a political structure be successful when there is so much hatred and sectarianism in Northern Ireland society? Surely we should wait until we have a reconciled society, and then the political structures can grow naturally from the broader reconciliation?"

There is still an amount of hatred, sectarianism and alienation around, of course. However, it seems to me that there is a degree of pessimism and even of cynicism about that question. It puts the negative aspects of our society so much in the foreground that we cannot see the huge bulk of what is positive in the background.

Throughout Northern Ireland, in spite of all our problems, a solid core of good neighbourliness has persisted. The real question is: "Why have we never been able to create political structures which can harness that good-neighbourliness, and make it possible for us to work together and to live together like the good people we really are, rather than legislating for the mythological antagonisms which drive us apart?"

Last year, while I was working with Peter North and John Dunlop on the parades issue, my father died. On the day of his funeral a beautifully symbolic thing happened. We were carrying the coffin out from our home. Just as we reached the turn in the loanin' before the final few yards to the county road, I felt a tap on my shoulder; it was Andy Kane.

My father and Andy had a very special friendship for many years which centred on Ballinahone Moss. There they both had cut turf in the time-honoured way, with the turf spade and with consummate skill.

Andy had been a faithful friend, and even though his top-quality turf was much in demand, he kept a few tractor loads every year, so that my father would have good Ballinahone turf and peace of mind about the winter's fuel to the day he died. The fact that my father was a Catholic and Andy was a Protestant only served to underline the quality of their friendship.

What happened at the turn of the lane was totally unscripted, and totally appropriate. When Andy Kane tapped me on the shoulder, all he said was: "There's three of us. We need a fourth." Not only had Andy come to attend the funeral of his old friend, but he was indicating in unmistakable terms a sense of kinship with my father as a neighbour and as a fellow farmer and turfcutter, and he was paying a public tribute to a man with whom he had shared a mutual respect and trust.

Henry Scullion, a Catholic neighbour, stepped over and joined the other three. As my father's coffin was carried the last few yards out on to the road, there were two Protestants supporting it on one side and two Catholics on the other, and they had linked their arms across each other's shoulders.

I glanced at my brothers. We knew my father would have loved it.

Father Oliver Crilly is parish priest of Melmont, Strabane, Co Tyrone. A member of the inter-church working party on Northern Ireland prisons in 1990, he was also a member of the independent review of parades and marches 1996-1997