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Perhaps caused by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s announcement that he would step down next month and he being connected with Tony Blair on the Good Friday Agreement although quite amazingly, John Major who started it all, is never mentioned, Charles Moore wrote an article in Saturday’s Telegraph about the GFA.

I always find Charles Moore as a journalist interesting to read but whilst I can empathize with his feelings on this matter, which were essentially that the extremists from both end of the spectrum were “given preference” whilst the moderates were ignored, I cannot agree with him.

These ‘negotiations’ are not a “model” that can be exported to deal with other conflicts such as the Middle East because they were specific to both time and place. And as many who will comment on these events, will point out that 9/11 and the effective withdrawal of American public support for anything labelled “terrorist organization” was as crucial as any other factor in forcing the pace in Northern Ireland.

I suppose that the real question lies in whether it is really “all over” and that is harder to predict. On the one hand there has been a significant “peace dividend” for most people in Northern Ireland and whilst their memories of “how it was” will and regardless of which side of the barricades they come from, make it harder to start it all up again, it won’t be impossible. The IRA has always suffered from splinter groups, there will always be people who want to be heroes and some manufactured “slight” to justify “heroic action” by one side or the other so, peace is not assured.

The classic error of both NI Unionists and mainland ones too is assuming that the goal for all Irishmen is for a reunited Ireland. Such an outcome is unlikely because the South doesn’t want it on both economic and social grounds – economically the South can’t afford it plus, regardless of religion, they are all ruddy Scotsmen rather than Irish anyway.

History, even if often an inaccurate rendering of it, rules supreme in Ireland so leaving both political extremes tied together in a power sharing arrangement under the Good Friday Agreement is probably the best possible outcome and gives the best chance for progress. However, one should remember that it was Michael Collins who signed the deal with Lloyd George that set up the partition of Ireland and an independent South. As he did so, quite knowingly remarked that in doing so, he was also signing his own death warrant, Irish politics have ever been tortuous and painful.

Ireland has accounted for the demise of more English political careers than enough, in one way or another but also over the generations, has provided us all in the UK with many great talents such as the Duke of Wellington and but less recognizable to the casual reader, many another too of equal renown who have made a great contribution to the story of these island races.

But on a more positive note: One should always remember that Magna Carta signed on a soggy meadow at Runnymede, was done so quite cynically by both sides in rather less than good faith, yet and however imperfect formed a pretty solid (for the times) foundation on which to build. Perhaps over time, the Good Friday Agreement may prove the same.