THE MOOD MUSIC could hardly be better a new British Prime Minister; an energetic and personable Northern Secretary, a British government with a clear mandate, free of dependence on the Ulster Unionists; the planned resumption of the inter party talks and the recurring suggestion that Sinn Fein is anxious to move out of the trenches. But can Mr Tony Blair and Dr Mo Mowlam make the difference?
The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste will be watchful for any clue as to the new British government's disposition when they meet Mr Blair at Downing Street this afternoon. For there is undoubted expectation in Dublin that Labour's history making election win can open a new door of opportunity in the search for a settlement in the North.
Mr Bruton and Mr Spring of course, have an election of their own to fight. And we should perhaps take their "spin" on today's proceedings with the usual pinch of salt. The new No to regime envisages little more than a cup of tea, a handshake and habitual photo opportunity.
Dr Mowlam will be there of course, fresh from last night's working dinner with Mr Spring. But so, too, will Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. With a "getting to know you" session planned before the coming Amsterdam summit, Europe seems likely to stand higher than Northern Ireland on Mr Blair's immediate list of priorities.
Moreover, as it wades through the mountains of official briefing the new British team is hardly likely to enter definitive commitments when it can't know which Irish government it will be dealing with over the next five years. Add to that the uncertainties about Drumcree, and the attitude and intentions of the IRA leadership, and you have good grounds for initial Labour caution.
At least some of the natives are bound to want to test the new Secretary of State's mettle over the hot summer months. So Irish sources are almost certainly right in looking to September for the start of any serious business.
HOWEVER, the same officials will be studying the mood in Whitehall busy in preparation for whichever coalition emerges from the Irish election, ready for a fresh pitch for peace and inclusive all party talks.
Their initial preelection hopes, it must be said, were not high, some key players were quite contemptuous of Mr Blair's "two sale steps behind Mr Major" approach to Northern Ireland policy in the last; parliament. They have been, and remain, anxious about Labour's susceptibility to the prevailing wisdom of the British security establishment.
And for Dublin strategists the defining moment may well be if and when they get back to the contentious issue of decommissioning illegal weapons, and the terms for Sinn Fein's engagement after any second ceasefire.
But that lies farther down the line. For the moment Dublin, in common with just about everybody else is seized of the opportunity afforded to Mr Blair by the scale of his mandate.
Partisans, critics and cynics alike find themselves caught up in the sheer excitement of Britain's change of government after 18 years. Those concerned with and for Northern Ireland cannot but hope that as Britons contemplate a new century engulfed in a political climate of rigorous change, even the custodians of the dreary steeples might be swept, along. Certainly the prevailing opinion outside the North is that they, jolly well ought to be. And even within Northern Ireland itself many will be hoping that the new regime, armed with such authority will manage to "bang a few heads" among a political class resolute in their opposition to change save, invariably, on their own terms.
Last Friday morning, as he reflected on the Tory rout, one wise old unionist told me he feared the Northern parties had it "coming to them". Moreover, he ventured that; "they bloody well deserve it". He couldn't begin to define in, detail what he meant, but his instinctive; feeling was that Mr Blair, this 44 year old moderniser who can realistically contemplate governing for two terms or more, would sooner or later tire of the endless dance around the intractable and irreconcilable positions of the parties to the ancient conflict.
For the moment, at least, there will be no hint of that from Mr Blair or Dr Mowlam. To the contrary, as her energetic start shows, the emphasis will be on listening and consulting. The Prime Minister himself displayed due sensitivity yesterday, finding time for a word with Mr David Trimble ahead of today's meeting with the Taoiseach.
These things matter. As it plainly matters that there should be no whiff of Dublin triumphalism, no suggestion that Mr Blair and Dr Mowlam use their big majority to trample over unionist sensitivities.
. At times in recent years the British and Irish governments have come dangerously close to appearing as keepers of one sectarian interest or the other. The Anglo Irish relationship is surely at its most effective, innovative and credible when it represents the assurance to all that the dispensation they seek will be rooted in fairness, justice and the principle of consent.
Whatever of the "who did what" during the previous peace process, Dublin cannot be seen to be cavalier about the distrust of unionist and British opinion of a republican strategy which seems to comfortably combine the offer of peace with the exercise of mass terror.
SOME close observers believe the republican game plan anticipates a renewal of pannationalism, working in tandem with a compliant British government and a friendly American administration, to take the unionists, against their will, into a pre ordained 32 county settlement.
All the evidence suggests that that would amount to a profound misreading of Dr Mowlam and Mr Blair. But it must be a matter of concern to Dublin that so many in the North remain convinced that her purpose is to secure a series of incremental concessions which, over the long term, would render the constitutional guarantee meaningless.
The Irish Government's game plan is to reconcile Northern nationalists to the reality of the Union while securing their parity of esteem under a new political dispensation within the wider AngloIrish framework. That clearly needs to be heard more and more compellingly as ministers resume their search for a formula which might entice Sinn Fein in from the political cold.
And if unionists are not simply to feel victims of this new political era. the quest for a resumed ceasefire on convincing terms must be accompanied by clearer evidence than we have yet had that all sides are prepared to proceed, if necessary without Sinn Fein. It is possible to open the door to republicans and be tough at the same time.
Dr Mowlam's clear preference is for an inclusive process. She knows that the IRA will not reinstate the ceasefire if the promised reward is Sinn Fein's participation in another decommissioning conference.
Reconciling that goal with the task of keeping mainstream unionism aboard will not be easy. Indeed, the impossibility of bringing all sides round the table may eventually force her to abandon the established talks formula. That would be the staging post to the conclusion she and Mr Blair might eventually face that, for all their positive words, the parties are not capable of agreeing and signing on the dotted line.
Come that point, like their predecessors before them, they could simply admit defeat. They might alternatively look to Scotland and what, by that stage, they will hope to have achieved there, a consensus carried in the teeth of some local opposition by the conviction of government and the free vote of the people.
