There are times when the Irish people really do excel themselves. Perhaps the smallness of the country and the singularity of identity enable unity of purpose to be achieved with extraordinary speed - as it did, for example, with the historically vital Tallaght strategy proclaimed by Alan Dukes. From that declaration of commonality of interest have the people produced the fastest growing economy in the free world.
But in recent days we have seen another comparable unity developing, without dissent, and around a common purpose. Virtually all unnecessary movement has stopped around the country. Sporting fixtures have been cancelled, to almost to universal acclaim. No one, but absolutely no one, is saying: the farmers again. Amid the rising tide of prosperity, farmers are no longer seen as parasites, but as a vital part of our community who need everyone's support. And farmers themselves are not declaring, "Don't blame us for foot-and-mouth", but instead are insisting: "Let us root out and abolish those of our number who disobey laws, who violate basic rules of animal health, who prefer delinquency to conformity."
Communal health
A time of adversity is a time for a people to measure their communal health. A healthy, honest, self-questioning society will freely rise to it, seeking genuine solutions, vigorously and without regard to sectional interest. An unhealthy one will seek simple, cheap solutions and easy scapegoats. By these definitions, the Irish people, and the Irish Republic, have shown themselves to be in fine condition: such would not have been the case in the pre-Tallaght days, when sectionalism and scapegoating were national characteristics, and our politics were rampant with disease, as the tribunal post-mortems are showing.
No one has been killed in the foot-and-mouth crisis either here or in Britain. Nobody has been maimed. We have partitioned the island more successfully than at any time in its history in order to protect our national herd of livestock, and no one has complained. Yet is it not true that if the British were to attempt to protect their own national herd of human lives by introducing comparable measures on their side of the Border at the height of the Provisional IRA campaign, those measures would have been denounced by nationalist Ireland as being provocative, anti-national, and pandering to unionist bigotries?
Today, paid officials of the crown may move through South Armagh to impose the rule of law to protect the lives of healthy cattle. What would nationalist Ireland have said two weeks ago if other paid officials of the crown had scoured South Armagh for the new terrorists of the Real IRA, thereby protecting human life? And was the failure to expect and exact the rule of law in South Armagh not the parent of the crisis now confronting us - which, by the favour of God, colossal good luck and the united will of the Irish people, we seem close to emerging through?
Ungoverned area
No human life has been lost, no human being maimed, by foot-and-mouth disease. Some 30 human lives could have been lost a month ago in the mortar attack on Ebrington Barracks in Derry, which emanated from that self-same ungoverned area. And indeed, that area might well be ungovernable by any measure other the equivalent of the precautions which have been taken against foot-and-mouth. Given the rising strength of the Real IRA there, given that the architects of Omagh are unrepentantly back on the warpath in London, we must conclude that consensus alone will not silence the rising din of war drums. Political will, expressed through the deployment of the security forces of the two states, is needed to curtail dissident terrorism.
Foot-and-mouth has done more for us than to remind us how coherently our will can be expressed, and how capable we are of achieving a common purpose. It has done us the enormous favour of almost certainly deferring the British general election. That might well be of huge historic significance. If the current unionist mood were tested now in the ballot box, it would probably see the extinction of David Trimble's career as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. As much as the McAdams wing of Sinn Fein, he is vital to the survival of peace in Northern Ireland.
Tribal rages
One might argue that a peace process which is so dependent on the political survival of a handful of individuals is too frail to survive the buffeting that must inevitably emerge from the tribal rages which have so regularly beset Northern Ireland. And they have not gone away, you know, as the footballer Neil Lennon, booed by Northern Ireland fans, has discovered. Yet they do appear to be diminishing. They will not, however, diminish if the Real IRA has its way; and that organisation will not be seduced, suborned or persuaded to abandon its military projects.
It comes down to the power of the state. It always does, when armed dissent emerges within a divided community. Neither government can wait for Sinn Fein to agree on a formula for policing. Policing, using existing resources, imperfect though they be, is going to have to be imposed by act of will on those regions where the Real IRA is organising and recruiting. As Alex Attwood said over the weekend, if you give republicans the opportunity to debate, discuss, and not decide, they will take all the time in the world. Foot-and-mouth has taught us one hell of a lesson: the challenge now is whether or not we are prepared to learn it.