The moment which spoke most powerfully of the future came after the opening of the Round Tower at the Peace Park at Messen, when the two bands marched together to the nearby town hall. There they were, the No. 1 Band of the Army of the Irish Republic, rank on rank with the band of the Royal Irish Regiment, the kilted pipers of both traditions almost indistinguishably cocky in their saffron swagger as they played Killaloe. Wonderful.
But there were still hard blows for ecumenists. For example, no SDLP anywhere; Army buglers were not permitted to play the Last Post at the Menin Gate; and Foreign Affairs had declined the invitation to the President to lay a wreath during the Menin memorial service. Moreover, there were wreaths galore at the new Peace Park from unionist-controlled councils in the North; even a personally-laid wreath from David Trimble for the nationalist 16th Division 60 miles away on the Somme - but no wreaths at all from the SDLP nor from any councils in the Republic.
Reconciliations
So is this what reconciliation is all about? That outsiders are expected to participate in the authorised ceremonies of Ireland, but that our President, or our Army, are not expected to join those outsiders in their places and services of memorial? That the SDLP remains absent from both? In all of our reconciliations with those we have been opposed to, must we not merely travel to those places unexamined and uncommemorated within our own political cultures, even as we make comparable journeys to other people's sensitivities?
We are told that President McAleese was not allowed to lay a wreath at Menin Gate because there was to be an imperial ceremony there. "Imperial"? Not so imperial that the Indians, the Sri Lankans, the Bangladeshis felt they could not lay wreathe; not so imperial that the ANC government of South Africa felt unable to lay wreathe to South Africa's own grave-less thousands, black and white; not so imperial that clusters of turbanned Sikhs could not murmuringly gather and touch the names of the sepoys and havildars lost on the Flanders swamplands and now carved imperishably on the stones of the memorial.
Our President seems to have had none of the difficulty of the mandarins of Foreign Affairs in making the journeys her office and her own humanity demand of her; and the very great pity of it all is that there is no radio or television record of her greatest moment, which came not during the ceremonial opening of the tower, with King Albert and Queen Elizabeth (which was comprehensively televised) but later, at Messen town hall, after the military march back from the Peace Park.
Emotional power
The cold words written on a page cannot convey the moral and emotional power of the President's speech. She was truly majestic. She did not lecture, hector or moralise, but her words were at once both gentle and firm, kind but strong, as she spoke of the men who, as she herself said, were doubly tragic: they fell fighting oppression in Europe, and their memory fell victim to a war for independence at home in Ireland. She is a north Belfast Catholic and nationalist, and the Royal Irish Regiment present for her opening of the Peace Tower contains in its entire the Ulster Defence Regiment so distrusted by people of her background. What greater evidence could there be of her own full and unequivocal enthusiasm for our long overdue rapprochement of history than this?
She is not alone. Many Irish soldiers had come at their own expense to be present, in uniform, both for the memorial service at the Menin Gate in Ieper that morning and for the opening of the Memorial Park that afternoon, not in criticism of the splendid traditions of their own Army, but merely to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of an earlier generation of Irish soldiers; and their commander-in-chief did them proud. Is it wrong to hope that representatives of our Army will in future march with the armies of the other nations of Europe to commemorate the dead - our dead and theirs - of the Great War?
Army brass
Regardless of that, one deeply painful truth must be considered: the uniform of the Army brass section frankly resembles that of a colliery band from Myrthyr Tydfil on a wet day during a miners' strike in 1948. It certainly compared horribly with the dashing uniforms and head-dress of the Royal Irish. Is there some unwritten code which detects military virtue in sartorial mediocrity? If so, it was violated splendidly and comprehensively by the differently uniformed Army pipers who in style and military bearing were the match and more of their opposite numbers in the Royal Irish. To be sure, getting it right for the brass will not come cheaply; but nor, I'm sure, does getting it wrong.
One spectator at this affair has for many years written of the disgraceful neglect of the Irish of the Great War, though naturally never seeking public acknowledgement for this. He certainly did not expect any mention from the President, about whom he has been less than courteous, but he did rather wistfully hope some passing reference to his role over 20 years might have been made by some other voice during the ceremonies. Not a sausage. The glory lay elsewhere, and he became as invisible as once had been those he had written about.