BEFORE all else, let us recognise those to whom, as Irish people, we owe an incalculable debt of gratitude. Ordinary men and women became extraordinary under pressure and found, within themselves, the virtues of fortitude and charity. Shere Bazir's son, Inan, was killed by the bomb at Canary Wharf. Within hours of the young man's body being dragged from the rubble, his father had issued a statement urging John Major to press ahead with his efforts to find peace in Ireland.
Kathleen Hazlett, a 16 year old Protestant girl living in a city where her community has sometimes felt sorely marginalised, walked on to a platform in front of the Guildhall Square in Derry. Speaking into a sea of Sinn Fein banners, she pleaded with the British government to recognise and act upon the desperate yearning that there should be no return to violence.
There were exemplary acts of political courage. Peter Temple Morris, a Conservative MP who has come to love this country, was one of the first people to appeal for us to show more understanding of Gerry Adams's position and to ease the pressure on him. Later, he wrote in the Guardian criticising his own government's failure to respond to the IRA's cessation of violence "If you knowingly accept to be part of a process of talks following a ceasefire, then you should talk. For 18 months not a word has been spoken in the context of the IRA's expectations of, and reasons for, the ceasefire."
In the immediate wake of the bombing, many British people took the trouble to write to newspapers or to contact their MPs to demand a greater sense of urgency from their political leaders. These and other acts by individuals influenced the whole tone of the debate at Westminster last Monday.
Perhaps there were articles by Government TDs which questioned the Taoiseach's frighteningly inept reaction to the Canary Wharf bomb but, if so, I didn't see them. It's so much easier to denounce the IRA for committing what we all know to be an atrocity, and to put all the political blame on the Brits. That way nobody has to wonder whether the Government's uncertain handling of the peace process may have contributed to the growing sense of IRA frustration.
LET US also recognise the courage shown by the leaders of the parties associated with the loyalist paramilitary groups notably David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson. One of the strongest arguments against any election in the North, at least as the plans appear at the moment, is that it seems clear these people will not win seats and that their influence, so constructive over the past 18 months, inevitably will be diminished.
There have been other more predictable, but no less welcome, interventions in this State. The spirited defiance of Jean Kennedy Smith, the American ambassador, as she stepped outside her diplomatic role. We know that she has been important to the process, but never more so than in the past few days when she expressed public support for Gerry Adams as offering the best (perhaps the only) hope of rescuing the peace.
But then Jean Kennedy Smith has experienced the terrible effects of political violence on her own family. Besides, she has a broader view and applies the lessons learned from observing how other leaders have had to take much more frightening risks in order to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East and South Africa.
Over and over again in the past few days I have heard John Bruton and Dick Spring explain that no Government in the history of the State has talked to a party which, has not renounced violence absolutely. But this is a different situation from that which faced their predecessors, and it is happening in a radically changed political context. There have been 25 years of violent conflict and more than 3,000 deaths in the North. People fear we could be facing back into tragedy on that scale, to losing another generation of young Irish men and women from both communities in Northern Ireland.
The citizens of this State have seen and been deeply moved by the courage of Yitzhak Rabin, of F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela. They know that the pursuit of peace involves serious political and personal danger. That is why they admire John Hume why they rallied to support Mary Robinson when, defying the wishes of the Government, she went to West Belfast and shook hands with Gerry Adams.
It explains why so many of them have been asking this week, privately and publicly, whether it might be possible to give Albert Reynolds some advisory role ("for a strictly limited duration and without any legislative powers") in the peace process.
EARLIER this week in Belfast I had outlined to me an extremely bleak explanation for the IRA's decision to bomb Canary Wharf. Although Sinn Fein's public position, for obvious reasons, is that the fault lay in the perfidy of the British government, considerable blame privately is also placed on Dublin. I was told that when the IRA looks at Westminster it sees a weak British prime minister imprisoned by the unionists.
In Dublin, the prospect is almost as depressing. The hard liners, at least, see a Government which has no coherent strategy for taking the peace process forward. They are particularly sceptical of John Bruton's ability to grasp the essentials of the Northern problem and see him as temperamentally vulnerable to outside events and pressures. (Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.)
I have written in the recent past of the Government's failure to woo British public and political opinion or to engage in any meaningful discussion with the broad unionist community. These problems remain and no doubt, if the IRA turns back from the path of violence, we shall return to them. But, just now, the urgent priority must be for the Government to reassert its authority as the driving force, providing the ideas and energy to fuel the peace process.
It is quite difficult to feel much confidence that this will be done. The proposals being discussed are an implausible political stew, a recipe designed to suit all tastes which could end up appealing to none.
The almost instinctive reaction is to duck away from any step that is remotely problematical for example, the decision to close down the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation just when such a meeting place, dedicated to the challenging aims of "peace and reconciliation" was most needed.
I am aware that this column is extremely critical, and does not offer much in the way of constructive suggestions. Hopefully, if we get past this particular crisis, this space will give me the opportunity to write about some of the things I think should be done in relation to the British, and to win the confidence of unionists and nationalists in the North. But for such discussions to have any point, all the parties need to have a sense that the Government has a clear vision of the way ahead, and how to travel it successfully.