IT must be put down as a year when poison permeated the body politic and there was a tantalising whiff of pogrom in the air. Whatever special formula 1996 provided to fan the flames, sectarian hatred flourished and there was scarcely anything but trouble from beginning to end.
Some said, of course, that the poison has been in the bloodstream of the North's population for many years, and simply has to flare up acutely from time to time, like malaria. But the form of fever that struck in '96 was so malign that it appeared there must be some new toxins driving it. At times it appeared, indeed, that much of the community and their politicians had, as Banquo said to MacBeth, "eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner."
The viciousness was driven in part by the sense of loss when the 17-month IRA cessation ended - the bitter sub-conscious sorrow at a unique opportunity having been let slip away. The euphoria, the tourism and business boom of 1995, the high excitement of the President Clinton visit - when all these were frittered away there was bound to be a psychological backlash.
After the seemingly intractable wrangling of 1995 over the decommissioning issue, January of '96 brought the marvellously crafted report of Senator George Mitchell's International Body on that key issue.
Almost universally hailed as a visionary and pathfinding way ahead, it was inexplicably slighted by the British government, who announced instead their decision on an elective process and a Northern Forum to pave the way for political negotiations.
The IRA did not wait long to signal its response to what was perceived as further prevarication. The Canary Wharf bomb in February appeared to mark the end of republican patience after 17 months of ceasefire with no talks and no fixed date for talks.
But there was a communal suspension of belief, a refusal to credit that this could mean a return of total conflict. And indeed there was no rapid escalation; the pattern that developed seemed to indicate an IRA strategy of sporadic, propaganda-generating attacks confined for the moment to Britain and mainland Europe.
Meanwhile the election campaign for the disputed Forum and for talks delegates went ahead as tension built up for what was to be the most destructive and dangerous marching, for decades. Sinn Fein's leap forward in the polls, securing almost 15.5 per cent of votes, reflected the growing frustrations, fears and militancy.
More posturing and prevarication - particularly between the various unionist groups - took place before Senator Mitchell was able to assume the chairmanship of the Stormont peace talks, which immediately settled down to the predictably protracted cavilling over procedures and agendas.
This tedium was rudely interrupted by the volcanic turmoil surrounding the Drumcree stand-off. Many people perceive the Orangemen's tactics of blockading roads and villages throughout the North for days on end as having been the factor which changed nationalist attitudes utterly. The naked use of Orange power to paralyse the North, with the security forces either unable or unwilling to intervene, brought Catholics up against, the old stark reality of Orange domination, the assertion that `might is right'. In this brief period of chaos, there was a widespread perception of a collapse in the rule of law which the citizen normally relies on to defend his person and property.
The rioting in Protestant areas was followed, after the debacle on the Garvaghy Road, by even more intense civil disturbances in Catholic areas. A distinct sectarian element developed in the continuing clashes, and in the end, many hundreds of families were rendered homeless or moved from their areas - probably the biggest single episode of demographic realignment in 25 years.
The reverberations of Drumcree were still powerfully in evidence at the year's end, with a seemingly intractable sense of resentment among Catholics, and Protestants reacting aggressively to the blocking of their parades in nationalist areas. Out of Drumcree has come a tragic polarisation of attitudes, manifested in phenomena such as the boycotting of Protestant businesses and the picketing of the Catholic church at Harryville, Ballymena.
THE violence of the 1996 marching season had been predictable, and was predicted, but it was probably the scale of the resulting damage - up to £50 million sterling in property destruction alone - which caused the British government finally to appoint an independent review body to look at the parades issue. An Oxford vice-chancellor, Dr Peter North, was appointed as chairman of the review and his report is due in February.
As the marching season meandered on into August, with trouble in many small villages and centres such as Dunloy, the political process seemed to be going nowhere. If there was any remaining doubt about the IRA's willingness to risk sparking conflict within the North again, the bomb in Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn, dispelled it.
The last quarter of the year was preoccupied with the poker game centering on whether there would or would not, or could or could not, be a renewed IRA ceasefire, and what the nature of it might be or should be.
John Hume's advances to John Major with a proposal he had constructed with Gerry Adams, were finally dashed, to the background of increasing electoral difficulties for the Tories, and intense Anglo-Irish contacts also failed to take things forward.
The spate of violence on the pre-Christmas weekend has ushered in a new phase, in which a more direct, head-to-head psychological stand-off between the IRA and the loyalist paramilitary groups must be expected in the New Year.
With the breaching - and de facto termination - of the loyalist ceasefire, the picture towards the year-end was almost unremittingly gloomy. Sectarian hatred seemed more intense than even in the pre-ceasefire years, there seemed little or no prospect left of an IRA cessation, and rapidly diminishing hopes of any political movement whatsoever before the forthcoming British general election.
Nineteen ninety six was indeed unpropitious and has added to the substantial Northern legacy of confirmed prejudices and entrenched attitudes. The most incorrigible optimist might still intone: "Things can only get better."
Pragmatic reality does not advise a substantial bet on that.