So this is what being a witness to history feels like

WHAT does history feel like? In November, 1985, when the Anglo Irish Agreement was signed at Hillsborough, the pretty village in Co Down was blockaded by angry unionists. Garret FitzGerald and his team flew in by helicopter to the Castle grounds. Irish officials were told that on no account were they to venture outside the gates or to think of returning home by car. A week later, 150,000 people gathered outside Belfast's City Hall to protest against the accord and all unionist MPs resigned their Westminster seats.

Last Monday afternoon, journalists stood in the sunshine outside Castle Buildings at Stormont and complained to each other. "What a shambles." "Call this a breakthrough?" And so on. I was reminded of the famous headline in the Guardian many years ago: "Chaos, as usual, in the Middle East."

But, inside the building, a Taoiseach addressed an audience which was overwhelmingly composed of unionists, including some of those who had vowed eternal resistance when the Anglo Irish Agreement was signed just over a decade ago. Journalists were excluded on this occasion but I am told that John Bruton was courteously received. The Rev Ian Paisley interrupted just once to ask, almost conversationally, "What about Articles 2 and 3?" It was at the point in his speech when he quoted the Ulster poet, John Hewitt, and spoke of the unionists as having rights "firmly rooted in the soil of this island".

Both David Trimble and Bob McCartney made it clear once or twice, by their facial expressions, that they disagreed with points Mr Bruton made. But there were no walk outs, no angry protests about the Taoiseach's speech or, as important, his right to be there at all.

It may be the unionists were saving their breath for the main event, the row over Senator George Mitchell's role in the talks, but it is also possible their calm reception of the Taoiseach had quite a lot to do with Mr Bruton himself.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. This was John Bruton's hour. Ever since he became Taoiseach, he has tried to offer reassurance and friendship to both political communities in Northern Ireland. At times, he has been severely criticised (by myself among others) for failing to understand the deep fears of Northern nationalists and the need to convince them they will never again be abandoned to majority rule.

In his speech, he addressed these fears quite directly, admitting that "we in the South" had tailed to protect the rights of the Northern minority and saying this would not happen again.

BUT, more than any of his predecessors, John Bruton has tried to reach out to unionists, to persuade them no Irish government would try to coerce them into a united Ireland. This conviction was very evident on Monday. His speech was finely pitched towards unionists and delivered with great feeling. He quoted George V's emotional and apposite appeal to "all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget and to join in making, in the land which they love, a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill."

The Taoiseach brought, or so it seemed to me, another quality to the day that was in it. It is true he had travelled to Belfast from the funeral of Garda Jerry McCabe. Even so, at the press conference given by the two prime ministers, it was quite striking how their styles differed. In this space I have often argued that John Major has shown a serious commitment to the peace process, particularly when one considers the political difficulties which beset him on all sides.

What seemed clear on Monday is that Northern Ireland is exactly that, one of a number of political problems with which the British prime minister has to deal as best he can, given the prevailing circumstances. By contrast, nobody who listened to him could have been left in any doubt about John Bruton's passionate commitment to the cause of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

It is salutary when confronted - and depressed - by the sometimes tragic events of the past week remember how far along the road we have ala ready travelled. The way ahead is going to be bumpy and we are not in the clear yet. The murder of Garda McCabe has thrown up the most difficult and potentially catastrophic challenge to Gerry Adams since he first embarked on the dangerous task of drawing the republican movement away from the gun and into politics.

The killing has provoked a profound sense of betrayal in this State and has already put the most serious strains yet on the relationship between Sinn Fein and the Government. John Bruton has moved a long way to try and accommodate Sinn Fein, but the murder of Garda McCabe has underlined just how often he has had to act against his own political instincts in the pursuit of peace.

Outside the wire fence at Castle Buildings last Monday, Gerry Adams said once again he believed there would be peace and a negotiated settlement. For this to happen, it is important not only for the IRA to call a ceasefire, but for Mr Adams to restore the confidence of the political community in the Republic. This has been gravely shaken not only by the murder of Garda McCabe but by the Sinn Fein leadership's equivocal reaction to it.

WE all know the reasons for this, the difficulties which have traditionally been involved in condemning even the most appalling IRA attacks. But if (and it is still - just about - if) the IRA did carry out this killing, it was a brutal betrayal of Sinn Fein's whole peace strategy and of all those who have tried to push it forward, including the 116,000 people who voted for the party less than a fortnight ago. Mr Adams and his colleagues have a responsibility to them - to say unequivocally that the murder of Garda McCabe was morally wrong as well as politically disastrous.

At times like this, one sometimes yearns for each side to be able to experience what the peace process feels like for the other community. Last weekend in Belfast, a unionist friend said to me, almost casually: "Monday is just another step in the dismantling of the union." This man is not a politician and is certainly not extreme in his views. He simply feels at home, intellectually and culturally, in the political space provided by the union with Britain.

I tried to reassure him, saying all the nationalist parties in the Republic and the SDLP were committed to the principle of consent and Sinn Fein had moved a long way down that path. "Yes, yes," he said, "it's civilised. They'll try and make it as painless as possible, but that's what's happening. The unionists will protest but they're fighting a rearguard action. I sometimes think it's just because Dublin cares about it so much more than London."

Listening to the two prime ministers on Monday, contrasting the difference in their styles, I remembered his words and thought: "This is how history feels."