Irish Examiner View: When it took courage to call for peace

When he died just weeks before our February election the constitutional politician Seamus Mallon’s backstory and achievements were unknown, or at least underappreciated, by a swathe of our electorate. Mallon’s age — 83 — and that of many far younger voters, the passage of time and, irony of ironies, his success, ultimately marginalised him.

Those unavoidables also marginalised many other politicians absolutely opposed to violence on either side of the North’s divide.