Fin Keegan

Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting side by side is such an unprecedented image that it sets the mind flicking back through the mental archives for aparallel: Vaclav Havel as President of the State that had but months before assaulted and imprisoned him seems closest.

The saddest aspect of this generally happy day (apart from the fact that moderates have been so sidelined) is that it took almost forty years to get the two sides to share power in a jurisdiction that is so tiny.

In an ideal world Paisley and Adams would be provincial councillors or part-time local politicians. Instead they are known throughout the world, from Tehran to Tulsa, very often for their sectarianism and, betimes, more or less veiled approval of political violence.

Now we may be headed for a situation, once unthinkable, where Ian Paisley is in charge up North and Gerry Adams is President down South. Who’s to say now that such a thing could not happen?