Next Sunday, on behalf of the citizens of Dublin, I will unveil a plaque outside of 59 Dawson Street. This plaque will be an addition to the hundreds of similar ones which mark sites of political, social, religious and cultural interest throughout the city.
The wording on this plaque will be: "The first meeting of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland was held on the premises on this site on 9th April 1798". Sunday was also to have been the occasion of the first Orange march in Dublin for more than 60 years. The Dublin and Wicklow District of the Orange Order had planned to hold a short march on Dawson Street, but earlier this month it decided not to proceed with this event. There are, I believe, lessons to be drawn for all of us on the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the march.
The original suggestion for the erection of a plaque was made by the Rev Brian Kennaway, education officer of the Orange Order, in a speech to the Irish Association in 1997. Like many other people, I was surprised to learn that the first meeting of the Grand Orange Lodge had been held in the heart of Dublin, but I felt that the proposal for a plaque was a good one.
When the Irish Association wrote to me, I tabled the proposal for Dublin City Council and it was supported by councillors from all parties. I did so because I believed this gesture could make a small contribution to meeting the commitment the Irish Government gave in the Downing Street Declaration that we, in the Republic, would "seek ways in which agreement and trust between both traditions in Ireland can be promoted and established".
When the Dublin and Wicklow District announced its plan, I publicly supported its right to march, although it was obvious that the proposal was always going to be controversial against the continuing background of the Drumcree/Gar vaghy Road impasse.
In supporting its right to march in Dublin I was not expressing support for the principles of the Orange Order, nor was I endorsing the position the order has adopted on controversial parades in Northern Ireland. I don't support or endorse Sinn Fein, but I will uphold its right to march in Dublin, even though many of our citizens have found the sight of groups of participants in paramilitary gear in these parades deeply disturbing.
There was a hostile reaction to the proposal from a minority of citizens and a handful of city councillors, although on April 3rd the city council unanimously passed a motion which upheld "the right of bodies such as the Orange Order to parade peacefully in the streets of our city".
Threatening letters were sent to me and to members of the Dublin and Wicklow District. Financial commitments began to mount for the numerically small Dublin and Wicklow District and on May 1st it announced that the parade was not going ahead.
Angry words were spoken by representatives of the Dublin and Wicklow District. Some were directed against me. It was suggested that I had tried to "distance myself" from the parade. I believe this misrepresents my position but I don't wish to get involved in recriminations and rather believe that we should try to learn from the events of the past few weeks and look to the future.
The unveiling of the plaque will go ahead on Sunday but, because of the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the parade, there will be no formal representation from the Orange Order.
This is a great pity. It would be wrong to overstate the potential significance had the parade gone ahead and had senior Orange figures been willing to attend the unveiling, but if both events had been able to proceed as originally planned it would have conveyed a message of tolerance and of a willingness to accept diversity on this island.
Our recent painful experience show that even small gestures aimed at healing division between the two main political strands on this island can founder on the rocks of suspicion and distrust. If there is to be genuine reconciliation, there is a need for greater attitudinal change on all sides. It was Nelson Mandela who said that we expect everyone else to change but are often reluctant to change ourselves.
THE foundation on which the entire peace process has been built since the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 has been "parity of esteem". That involves us all tolerating ideas, events, organisations and practices which are not part of our own particular social or political culture.
Great change is taking place. The Ulster Unionist Party has accepted cross-Border bodies and the principle of the involvement of Sinn Fein in the governance of Northern Ireland. The republican movement has accepted the Belfast Agreement which guarantees that there can be no change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the consent of a majority of its people.
Politicians, who stood in the breach against terrorism and violence over 30 years, have shown a willingness to accept into the democratic family the political affiliates of those paramilitary organisations previously responsible for unspeakable crimes.
Despite the ups and downs in the process since the Belfast Agreement and regardless of the outcome of the Ulster Unionist Council meeting, the momentum for change is unstoppable. Against this background, I think it is most unfortunate that the Dublin and Wicklow Lodge did not proceed as planned.
Throughout the worst years of the troubles in Northern Ireland, members of the Orange Order continued to march each year in Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal, without any great controversy. I do not see why, if it is the wish of the Dublin and Wicklow District, that a similar parade could not become a regular event in Dublin.
Councillor Mary Freehill is Lord Mayor of Dublin