PRESIDENT MARY McAleese yesterday warned that while Northern Ireland has experienced political resolution, the residual "toxic spores" of sectarianism and racism should leave no room for complacency.
Speaking at the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace project in Warrington, Cheshire, Mrs McAleese said that 10 years after the Belfast Agreement, "talk that Northern Ireland as a problem has been solved" worried her when sectarian attitudes still remain.
"It's worth reminding ourselves that 900 years went into the making of the culture we inherited. Its toxic spores had a fantastic shelf life, and that is what we're fighting against now . . . Those toxic spores which were pernicious and very long-living, we have to make sure we pull every one of them out."
The President told an audience at the foundation that the "toxic spores of vengeance and bitterness" had for too long contaminated relations between and within the two islands.
This legacy had been challenged by the "quiet, courageous and consistent efforts" of people like Colin and Wendy Parry - who established the foundation for peace after their schoolboy son Tim was killed when the IRA bombed Warrington in 1993, she said.
"What they've done is something quite magical and quite miraculous. Instead of taking their personal hurt and dreadful loss and turning it into bitterness and adding to the bitter legacy of history, they said 'let's stop history in its tracks. Let's make a new history, let's learn to focus on the things that unite us, the commonalities, let's deal with sectarianism and racism, let's not allow the toxic spores run ahead of us into the future.'"
This "remarkable" project was teaching young people "to live with difference, focus on their commonalities, and recognise sectarianism and bullying as something that is poisonous and will ruin their lives and the lives of all around them."
Referring to Ireland's increasingly ethnically diverse population, Mrs McAleese spoke of the need to be able to recognise and respect difference. "Racism is the first cousin of sectarianism," she said.
Colin Parry praised the support he and his family had received from Ireland.
During her visit, the President also announced that the Government's anti-sectarianism fund had decided to allocate €75,000 to the foundation.
In the final engagement of her two-day visit to Liverpool and Cheshire, Mrs McAleese addressed the Big Hope Global Youth Congress at Liverpool Hope University. She told delegates from 60 countries that the once "very fraught" relationship between Ireland and Britain had metamorphosed into a "remarkable warm collegiality and a very effective partnership" which had created the context for the peace process.