Letter from Wellington: Kevin McAree shares the lease on the Brewery bar and restaurant on the waterfront here in Wellington, the New Zealand capital, between a busy theatre and Te Papa, the great new national museum.
To judge from the crowds who frequent it of a summer evening, he and his partners make a lot of money. He likes Wellington's friendliness, certainly in comparison with Auckland, the country's biggest city way to the north. Having grown up in Monaghan and Armagh, he is fond of a comparison.
"If Auckland is Dublin, then Wellington is Castleblayney," he muses. "Here you get to know most people you meet on the street."
An easy sense of community in this country goes some way towards explaining how New Zealanders seem to be moving towards laying to rest more than a century and a half of tensions which have plagued society relations here.
As the prime minister, Helen Clark, said recently, there is discussion about whether the country should move from being one of the realms of Queen Elizabeth to republican status. More importantly, the country could be about to give an example to the world about conflict resolution.
A minority of New Zealanders descend from the aboriginal Maoris who came here from the Pacific islands 750 years ago: the majority are the descendants of white settlers, mostly from Britain and Ireland, who emigrated here in from the 1830s on.
Known as the Pakeha, they took land from the Maori, fought them when they rebelled in the late 19th century and occupy most of the higher echelons of society to this day.
Things had supposedly been settled in 1840 when Queen Victoria's representative and the Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi giving Britain rights to govern, yet confirming Maoris in their ancestral lands. But Maoris continued to lose land, and their grip on society and relations became grievously polarised.
Their culture was under pressure and their language began to be abandoned, a terrible development for a people who had no written language before the Europeans came and whose history was handed down in an oral tradition.
Today the Maori have more than their fair share of the poorest and of the prison population, yet they are undoubtedly in the middle of a renaissance. Now about 15 per cent of a population of four million, their numbers have grown by a fifth over the past 10 years. In 1987 their language was made official: its use in society has expanded from the internationally celebrated haka or war cry with which the All Black rugby team - and in wartime the Maori battalions of the army - have for years preceded their battles.
Maori greetings are in common use. Kia Ora, the name of an orange squash in the northern hemisphere, means both "Hello" and "Thank you" here. Official documents combine both languages and refer not to New Zealand but to "Aotearoa New Zealand". A massive linguistic effort has produced a new Maori vocabulary for words and concepts which the Maori of old never knew. Education is available to children in Maori, English or a combination of both.
Albeit a little self-consciously, it's not uncommon for Pakeha to substitute the handshake of greeting for the Maori hongi or touching of noses and the forehead - one touch for a friend, two touches for an acquaintance.
Maurice Manawatu, a prominent Maori at Kaikoura in South Island, says the gesture symbolises the threefold meeting of body, soul and intellect.
Maori morale has been bolstered by the worldwide success of Kiri Te Kanawa, the operatic diva.
Hinewi Mohi, lead singer in the group Oceania, sings only in te reo, Maori. She comments: "In Europe they've already done the Latin and Celtic thing and they're ready for the Pacific. I'm quite staunch about te reo in my music. People ask me to translate the lyrics and I shrug and say, 'Why?'"
The greatest boost to Maori mana or self-respect came in 1975 with the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act. It established a permanent tribunal which adjudicates about claims over land issues between Maori and Pakeha. Though it is criticised as underfunded, underpromoted and slow, it has recommended compensation claims which total many millions of euro which the government has paid to tribal or community groups.
The Maori have thrown up clever businessmen such as Wally Stone in the tourist trade who started a ferociously efficient business which takes visitors out on boats to see the whales which congregate off Kaikoura in South Island. At the same time, the tribunal process has sometimes also suffered from Maori inability to manage the funds they receive.
Yet Maurice Manawatu is happy for his tribe. "We got a pay-out a few years ago, contracted a financial adviser and quadrupled our money."
The national interest has also coincided with the Maori traditions of respect for nature as the government in Wellington has promoted an image of a sparsely inhabited country that is highly ecologically aware under the slogan "100% Pure New Zealand".
There is pride that the film of The Lord of the Rings was shot here, and there are plenty of websites which expound Maori lore from language to arts and crafts. The Maori renaissance and the government aid that has encouraged it have raised some resentment among Pakeha. The conservative opposition National Party, keen to reduce government spending and taxes, periodically moans about what it calls unjustified subsidies to one group of New Zealanders.
Nevertheless, its leader, Don Brash, formerly a central bank governor for 14 years, makes sure that he has enough linguistic ability to pepper his speeches with Maori phrases.
Tensions subsist in the Maori- Pakeha relationship. The Maori come from a civilisation which emphasised the collective: the Pakeha are often seen by them to be too close for comfort to the profit motive.
The Pakeha say that Maori, who moved from the traditional structures which kept society together in the countryside to the town, where no such structures exist, have tended to go to pieces.
There are grumbles on both sides but the prospects for better relations look good.