New York was cold and damp on Friday morning, but it will take more than wet weather to dampen the spirits of the Irish in this city and across the US this weekend.
Thursday was an all-nighter for many Irish here, with scudding troughs of despair alternating with soaring highs of elation.
There are several lessons to be drawn from this proposed agreement. The first is that inclusive dialogue is the only way to resolve our most pressing problem. The failed initiatives of the past quarter-century in Northern Ireland all deliberately excluded the extremes from the negotiations, thereby only exacerbating their sense of isolation. Irish-Americans have been much maligned for demanding over the years that Sinn Fein and, indeed in recent times the loyalist paramilitaries, be part of the solution as much as they were part of the problem. The American style is inclusion, working the negotiations from the extremes into the centre. It is a fundamental part of every successful conflict resolution that the extremes be given the opportunity to move to political ground.
Looking back, I am reminded of my first meeting with then-candidate Bill Clinton in 1991 in a New York hotel room long before he was a front runner for the Presidency. Myself, Paul O'Dwyer, Paul's wife Pat, and the Boston mayor Ray Flynn expected the usual scenario of a skilled staffer handling all the tough questions while the candidate nodded away dumbly.
We had been searching for a presidential candidate for many years who would take the issue of Northern Ireland seriously. We had more hope than expectation that the obscure Southern governor would care an Arkansas catfish for our concerns.
We could not have been more wrong. Clinton met us alone and blew us away with his Irish knowledge.
Paul O'Dwyer turned to me as we left the room. "If this guy gets elected everyone better watch out," he said. Those were prophetic words.
I also remember my first meeting with George Mitchell after he had been named chairman of the decommissioning commission. We met in his New York City law firm, and I could not but feel sorry for the former Maine senator who was up a creek without a paddle, or so it seemed to me.
Mitchell, too, took me by surprise, not by his overwhelming knowledge of his topic like Clinton but by the way his questions probed the extent and depth of my opinions. It was a not-too-gentle cross-examination from a master who was once a highly-respected federal judge. By the end, Mitchell had teased every relevant scrap of information on Northern Ireland I held, and even then left me rethinking my own certainties.
There are many such heroes on the American side of the peace process whose roles should not be forgotten. Former National Security Adviser Tony Lake and his deputy, Nancy Soderberg, suffered the full brunt of the slings and arrows of the British press and sections of the American press after making the decision to grant Gerry Adams a visa.
Crucial in that decision, too, was Senator Edward Kennedy and his sister Jean Kennedy Smith, and Senator Kennedy's foreign affairs staff member Trina Vargo. All of them nurtured a process which had many detractors even among the President's own advisers, who felt he was wasting his time.
When word of the proposed settlement came I was reminded of the New Departure, of Irish America, Parnell, the Land League and some physical-force elements more than a century ago joining forces and what they almost achieved, setting in place the legislation for Home Rule which was later so cruelly snatched away from them.
Now we have the fruits of this 20th-century New Departure, the first time since then that Irish America, constitutional nationalism and Irish republicanism have joined forces to help achieve a constitutional settlement.
This time Irish America delivered the President of the United States, and through him the talks chairman, George Mitchell. Constitutional nationalism delivered the legislative framework, a superb set of negotiating officials and leaders like Bertie Ahern and John Hume at the most crucial time. Irish republicanism delivered two IRA ceasefires and leaders of the calibre of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness with the ability to bring their movement with them.
Yet this, too, could fail, like Parnell, Devoy and Davitt faced failure before them, not through any fault of their own, but because forces conspired to bring down a settlement. It is up to all, from heads of state to the ordinary people, North and South, to make sure that it does not occur on this occasion.
Niall O'Dowd is the founding publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine, and was the founder of the Irish American peace delegation