The new-found commitment to history by the Irish Government is to be welcomed. The current revival of Lemassian themes in relation to Northern Ireland within Fianna Fail will, if it is taken to its logical conclusion, very possibly lead to a form of constitutional dispensation on the part of the Republic which will effect significant political progress at the Stormont talks.
On December 14th, 1967 the report of the ad-hoc committee on the Constitution was published. The committee's membership was distinguished: Sean Lemass, who joined following his resignation as Taoiseach; James Dooge, later Minister for Foreign Affairs under Garret FitzGerald; Bobby Molloy, currently serving as the second PD Cabinet member; Michael O'Kennedy, another future Minister for Foreign Affairs and author of Fianna Fail's disastrous 1975 Northern policy statement; Eoin Ryan, who carved out a role during the Haughey era as one of the party's chief constitutionalists; and Gerard Sweetman, previously a Minister for Finance.
Perhaps the most significant name of all in present circumstances is that of David Andrews, recently promoted once again to lead Iveagh House. It is ironic, therefore, that Mr Andrews, who proposed revision of Article 3 of Bunreacht na hEireann in 1967, sought in his first days at the Stormont talks to present himself as irredentism's champion. The UUP's temporary withdrawal for reflection on Mr Andrews's remarks has had an entirely positive impact on the Irish Government's position, however. At last, Articles 2 & 3 are truly on the table for renegotiation.
The disastrous nature of the decision to allow the 1967 report to wither on the vine was demonstrated in 1974 when the Supreme Court, in response to a petition from Kevin Boland, found that the Sunningdale Agreement did not constitute the granting of recognition to Northern Ireland, as Brian Faulkner had been led to believe. The holed Sunningdale craft was finally sunk through a lack of attention to the Constitution in the late 1960s.
If the 1972 referenda on the voting age and the special position of the Catholic church had included the phrasing suggested in 1967, the course of history in Northern Ireland might have been wholly different, with countless individual tragedies avoided. Clearly, slow learning is not purely a unionist affliction.
That Ireland could only be united, and can only be united "in harmony and brotherly affection", stands today as a self-evident truth which was not sufficiently grasped then. 1998 must be the year when the Irish Constitution finally blends with the Republic's ancient commitments. The Government of the Republic is still bound by its recognition of Northern Ireland in the 1925 Boundary Agreement, irrespective of the 1937 provisions.
As the secret Department of Foreign Affairs document of October 26th, 1969 acknowledged: "Treaties may not be unilaterally terminated . . .[otherwise] international relations would be very haphazard and unstable".
The claims to governance over Northern Ireland and to her territory have no standing whatever, therefore, in international law. Only a clean revision will suffice; a cosmetic reshaping which falls short of disestablishing the "constitutional imperative" decreed in the McGimpsey case would prolong not only the mistrust between North and South but prevent useful mutual co-operation on the island which, it is to be hoped, will provide the synthesis for Northern nationalism to find a new comfort within the Union.
While there is no suggestion that Northern nationalists are any the less "Irish" than those people living in the Republic, a better way of validating that fact can be found than the current Article 2, which aggressively records that "the territory of Ireland is the island of Ireland".
It could be that the SDLP's much-heralded concept of "equality of allegiance" might contain within it the necessary empowerment of Northern nationalism sufficient not to require Irish unification. Yet, for all his words about its cherished position now within the SDLP's panoply of principles, John Hume in his address to his annual party conference did not do the public the courtesy of explaining what the phrase actually meant. Meanwhile, it smacks of joint authority to unionism.
In other respects, the SDLP conference displayed a refreshing realism, in marked contrast to that of Sinn Fein's Francie Molloy in Cullyhanna, south Armagh with his comment about a possible return "to what we know best". The dismissive tone of Northern nationalists towards Stormont, both the building and the notion of governing in partnership with unionists, must be countered through encouragement by the Irish Government.
Rapprochement between unionists and the Irish State will only occur when Dublin sanctions Northern nationalists for a failure to engage with their fellow Ulstermen. Realistic participation must replace the SDLP's indifference.
Whether we like it or not, unionism and nationalism in Northern Ireland have created a standpoint out of a stand-off. Insufficient credit has been given to David Trimble for his activism within a process unloved by unionism and tarnished by a degree of sloppiness on the part of both governments in their dealings with the representatives of terrorism.
If Bertie Ahern is to follow Lemass and hold encouraging meetings with the leadership of unionism in Belfast rather than London, he must finally call off the hostilities not of his making nor becoming of a state which in a few weeks' time will celebrate 25 years in European union with the United Kingdom.
Steven King is special adviser to Mr John Taylor MP, the UUP deputy leader.