Bridges built as Taoiseach gripped, shaken and stirred

WE wondered anxiously aloud/ if the day would unveil new histories/ when all at once we saw a crowd/a host of golden opportunities.

And so it was, in a daffodil-filled setting just like the Wordsworth poem, that Farmleigh became the venue for another milestone in the political chronicles of our time. The sky was blue, flowers swayed in the breeze and deer grazed. It couldn’t have been prettier if Beatrix Potter had done a makeover.

But as the convoy of State cars snaked into view, one question remained. Would Ian Paisley be the black cloud in the picture-perfect scene? The question did not linger long. “Good morning!” the man with the built-in loud hailer commanded to the world at large as he emerged into the sunshine and strode towards the waiting Taoiseach like an old friend long overdue a visit. “I have to shake hands with this man — give him a grip.”

With that Mr Ahern was gripped, shaken and most certainly stirred. With a slap on the back and a handclasp that would splinter a cricket bat, Big Ian was in da house and the door could be shut on another part of anisland’s troubled past.

“This is all a dream sequence. We’re all going to wake up soon,” whispered one North-weary observer who had spent too longreporting on the hopes of breakthroughs.

The weary one was right to be incredulous. Mr Paisley always maintained he would never take the hand of an Irish prime minister without a settlement in the North and with the first day of the new Northern Assembly still a month away, he could technically, and rather characteristically, have declared the situation insufficiently settled.

But this was a day for teacups, not technicalities. Mr Ahern spoke of friendship and plans to bring Big Ian to the site of the Battle of the Boyne. Mr Paisley replied with talk of cemented relationships, pride in his Irish roots, mutual respect and pleasure at the idea of seeing the Battle of the Boyne site — but to visit, not to re-fight it.

And, perhaps inspired by the setting, something of the poet came out of this “plain speaking Ulsterman”.

“Some say hedges make the best neighbours but that is not the case. I don’t believe we should plant a hedge between our two countries,” he said.

Besides, they would obscure the view of the daffodils.