So the Queen has begun a historic visit to Northern Ireland, the main talking point of which seems to be the fact that she'll shake the hand of deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. I can understand why so much focus has been on this upcoming moment - various journalists have alleged in the past that, not only was he active in the IRA, but he was a member of their seven-man Army Council. The IRA, of course, claimed responsibility for the bomb which killed the Duke of Edinburgh's uncle Louis Mountbatten, and two children, in 1979. So she may well understand all too well that there are plenty of people who have lost loved ones to terrorist actions who will be less than happy with this.
It's therefore a lot easier for me, as somebody who's never been in that position, to say this. But this is, I think, part of the price that has to be paid, and will continue to have to be, to bring about an end to the Troubles. If McGuinness, Gerry Adams and the like had not realised that the way to secure their ends was through the ballot box and not through terrorism, and if the governments on both sides of the Irish Sea had not been prepared to be particularly forgiving of what had been done in the name of 'freedom', there'd have been no Good Friday Agreement. Perhaps things would never have changed.
If Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, for example, can put aside years of mutual hatred and suspicion, and work within a political framework that seemed impossible when I was growing up, then that price has been, for me, worth paying. Anybody who lost somebody in the bombings of Enniskillen, or my home city of Brighton, or anywhere else that suffered during the Troubles, may of course feel very differently, and I'm in absolutely no position to tell them they're wrong.
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