This year looks like being the quietest in terms of killings since serious violence erupted in 1969, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
The disappointment caused by the failure of the parties to negotiate a comprehensive settlement which would have restored devolution has been compounded by figures which show that 2004 was the most peaceful year of the "Troubles".
Had the deal not become stalled earlier this month, politicians would now be preparing for a return to local rather than British direct rule, buoyed by statistics which illustrate that Northern Ireland is gradually becoming a relatively peaceful society.
Figures compiled annually by The Irish Times over 35 years show that this year, so far, only four men were killed in violence related to the security situation. If this figure is maintained to the end of December, then 2004 will have been the quietest year since the violence erupted in 1969.
The UVF is blamed for two of the four killings this year and it may also have been involved in a third. The INLA is suspected of the fourth killing.
While the killings are dramatically down on other years, the British and Irish governments and their security chiefs know that they cannot become complacent. Republican and loyalist paramilitary "punishment" attacks, intimidation and exiling are continuing on a substantial scale, although here as well there are reductions in activity.
Republican and loyalist criminality also remains a major issue, as evidenced by the £22 million Northern Bank robbery before Christmas. The IRA is numbered among the chief suspects for the crime, although the PSNI has not definitively stated who was responsible. If the IRA is formally fingered for this robbery, any chance of a political resolution leading to an early restoration of devolution will have been blown.
The IRA was blamed for a major robbery of the Makro cash-and-carry in south Belfast earlier in the year and it also gained significantly from smuggling. Meanwhile, loyalist paramilitaries continued to be involved in drug-dealing, most notably the UDA and LVF, as well as in extortion, robberies and racketeering.
This year witnessed a peaceful "marching season", apart from one serious incident in Ardoyne in north Belfast on July 12th, when IRA members went to the aid of British paratroopers being attacked by local republicans in order to prevent a potential bloodbath. There was also a significant reduction in republican "punishment" shootings and beatings. PSNI figures up to the end of November this year show that there were 59 republican attacks compared with 159 by loyalists. This compares with 99 republican and 188 loyalist attacks during 2003.
This year also saw a marked increase in violent racist attacks, with the UVF believed to be chiefly responsible, although the organisation denied that such attacks were authorised by its leadership.
This is only the third year since the IRA and loyalist ceasefires of 1994 that the total number of murders has been in single figures. In 1999, seven people were killed, while the total came to nine in 1995.
The year of the "Real IRA" bombing of Omagh in 1998, with 57 deaths, was the worst since 1994, but other years following the ceasefires have been bad as well: in 1996 there were 21 deaths, or 22 if the death of Sinn Féin councillor Pat McGeown, who died from a heart attack, a condition dating from the time he was a hunger-striker in the H-Blocks in 1981, is included. The total for 1997 was 21 deaths; for 2000 it was 18; for 2001 it was 19; for 2002 it was 15; and for 2003 it was 11.
Deaths in the 1980s - and also in 1991 - often exceeded 100, while the 1970s was the bloodiest decade of the Troubles, with 1972, during which 496 people died, the worst year of all.
Eighteen people were killed in 1969, the year which is generally considered the start of the Troubles, although there was a number of security-related killings in the mid-1960s.
Earlier this month, the political negotiations failed effectively because of deadlock between republicans and the DUP over photographic verification of IRA decommissioning. In the Republic, primarily, parties contended that the absence of a copper-fastened commitment from the IRA to pledge itself to ending criminality was also hampering a comprehensive agreement.
In the North, the DUP appeared to be fairly unperturbed by this element of the potential deal on offer, insisting that it would not sign off on any deal which did not include an end to IRA activity.
In March this year Andrew Cully (47), a father of two from Greyabbey on the Ards Peninsula in Co Down, was shot 10 times as he sat in his car in the loyalist West Winds Estate in Newtownards.
His murder may have been ordered by a new UVF leader in the area keen to impress his authority in north Down. It was alleged at the time that Mr Cully was murdered because the UVF leader suspected that he had acted as a police informer.
The UVF struck again in May, when it shot dead Brian Stewart (34) from Donegall Road in south Belfast. Mr Stewart, who was ambushed as he drove to work in east Belfast, was seen as a senior figure in the Loyalist Volunteer Force.
This killing was yet another bloody episode in the long-running feud between the UVF and LVF. It triggered a series of bomb attacks and shootings involving the rival paramilitary organisations.
On September 29th last, Darren Thompson (22), from the loyalist Waterside area of Derry, was shot near his home and died two days later from his injuries.
Mr Thompson was viewed as being associated with some UDA figures in Derry, although it is understood that he was not a member.
It was unclear initially whether UVF or UDA elements were involved in this murder, but subsequently it was believed that UVF members killed Mr Thompson, although there was no admission of responsibility. Despite the murder, the UVF and UDA in Derry insisted that there was no feud between them in the city.
The revisiting of an eight-year-old feud between the different factions of the INLA may have led to the killing in early June of Kevin McAlorum. He was shot dead in front of horrified children and their parents at Oakwood integrated school in south Belfast.
A major drug-dealer and former INLA figure, his enemies within that organisation blamed him for the 1996 killing of INLA leader Gino Gallagher in west Belfast, and his death may have been the "settling of an old score".
Gallagher's killing was the spur for an internecine INLA feud which left six people dead eight years ago, including McAlorum's nine-year-old sister, Barbara.