Fewer than 20 people attended a peace rally at Belfast City Hall yesterday at 11 a.m. to coincide with two minutes' silence. Passersby on the street said they were unaware of the initiative.
A Shankill Road community worker, Ms May Blood, who was among those outside the City Hall, said she believed people from both communities had stayed away from the event because it would be seen as "a wishy-washy issue". She said, however, that "people power" was strong in areas on either side of the divide.
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, congratulated the STOP 96 (Solidarity To Organise Peace) group which organised yesterday's two-minute silence. She said that while support for the initiative had "differed from area to area" , many people in the public and private sectors had made a determined effort to take part.
Dr Mowlam encouraged people to play a more active role in promoting the talks process.
The co-ordinator of the two minutes' silence for peace organised for 11 a.m. yesterday believes the event was a success in the Republic but that it was poorly observed in the North.
Mr Paul Burton, co-ordinator of STOP 96, said: "We are very happy about it. We got a great response, but it was muted in Northern Ireland. That is because we haven't got a branch there. I have been getting calls all day supportive of the event. We are all very proud."
Dail and Seanad support had been a big help, but he would have liked RTE and the print media to have given more publicity a week ago, he said. While the publicity in recent days was welcome, an even bigger response could have been generated if there had been more widespread earlier support.
However, he believed that the campaign, considering it had only one full-time worker and no resources, was a success.
He pointed out that political parties could spend millions of pounds on election campaigns but could get only about 40 per cent of the electorate out to vote.
Mr Burton said he was disappointed at the response from big business when asked to make a contribution towards advertising. He said it was the smaller firms, which were least able to pay, which gave the most support.
"One of the biggest companies in the State would not give a penny towards the campaign, but said they would allow their workers to take two minutes off to observe the silence."
Asked if STOP 96 would hold another period of silence in the future, Mr Burton said they had not considered that yet.