Visitors to Ireland once used to marvel grimly at the state of our small towns, though those towns were far from marvellous, writes Kevin Myers.
They were drab, spiritless, depressing assemblies of unpainted buildings; behind unwashed shop-windows, dead flies lay alongside a few wizened apples, some bleached-pale detergent packets or perhaps some ancient, yellowing, corsetry. Nor let us forget the perfectly vile pubs, for whom the word "food" was as taboo as cannibalism. The main street was mired with dung, and you'd be as likely to see flowers as you would a Haitian witch-doctor.
The changes of the past few years or so have been astounding, simply astounding; the gorgeous Georgian streetscapes of the small towns of Ireland have emerged like butterflies from many decades of neglect and economic depression. It is worth remembering - not least because so many people are inclined to forget - why Bord Fáilte started the tidy towns competition. It wasn't originally intended to measure and reward excellence, but to haul the country from the despair and visual neglect into which all but a few communities had sunk.
We could probably drop the Tidy Towns competition now, and it would make little difference: most villages and towns in Ireland have a real sense of identity and a pride in their appearance. Throughout the summer months, there are flowers everywhere; even the meanest hamlet will have neat, well-minded window-boxes and flower-beds. And perhaps the most reassuring aspect of the revitalisation of these small communities is that they have retained the traditional Irish sense of vibrant colour - improbable purples, wicked maroons, adulterous greens, and thoroughly depraved blues, all living alongside one another in shameless promiscuity.
The other day we stopped in Bunclody, which is preposterously pretty: beautiful shop-fronts, all immaculately maintained, flowers in abundance everywhere - and most of all, a wonderful sense of confidence and enterprise. It really wasn't so long ago that Irish towns were architectural mission statements of national gloom; today Bunclody is merely a prime example of so many small communities which take a vigorous pride in themselves in every sense.
We had been told that the Chantry restaurant in Bunclody was good. It wasn't. It was excellent. The Sunday buffet was doing huge business, and perhaps the most reassuring feature of it all was that success hadn't been at the price of courtesy or friendliness. We sat outside in the sun-baked, stone-flagged courtyard while the river babbled alongside the beautifully maintained gardens, and waitresses hovered, courteously attentive but subtly unobtrusive. A splendid lunch for two came to under €20.
Perhaps the nicest sensation of all came from the question we kept on asking ourselves: Where were we? We were in Ireland, that's where, backward terrible old Ireland of not so long ago, where we could do almost nothing right; and now so much is so very right. Of course, the good weather helps; but we have all seen this new-old Ireland emerging from the ruin that economic mismanagement and mass cretinism had reduced us to.
The next day, we went to Tinahely show. I stopped going to country shows years ago, for they invariably provided depressing evidence of why we had spent decades in the doldrums. They would be badly organised, there would no proper traffic management, the toilets would be The Hedge, and there would be litter everywhere.
Well, not at Tinahely. Everything was managed with almost Swiss efficiency. The competitions for rare animal breeds were especially heartening, for these exist not because of EU grants, but out of genuine love of husbandry and a fascination with ancient livestock. And perhaps even more miraculous were the anti-litter arrangements, with huge bins everywhere, and with people using them.
Finally, finally, it seemed, we were getting so much right; and in a mood of some pleasure, I made to leave. It was then I caught in the breeze the sounds coming from a distant stage. I went closer, and heard the familiar refrains of IRA songs. An entire concert of the Provisional IRA's favourite little melodies. I don't know the name of the group; it might have been that abysmal crew, The Wolfe Tone-deafs, or even The Wolfe Clones. It really doesn't matter. The fact that such a display of primitive tribalism exulting in terrorist war is accepted at a country fair in 2003 is in itself profoundly troubling.
For the toxin of armed republicanism, when it is no longer in belligerent mode, always hibernates in ballads: the myths and the lies are transmitted in song. Like the engine of an aggressive tumour in remission, the virus of armed republicanism hides itself in an almost infantile benignity: whimsical little tunes about little jolly plough-boys, and maudlin laments about terrorist dead.
But there are no songs for the Birmingham 21, or the Whitecross ten, or the La Mon ten, or Frizzell's nine, or the Enniskillen eleven, or the thousands of other victims of the IRA through the 20th century. Songs for Kevin Barry, but none for the three teenage soldiers his unit shot down. No songs for Jean McConville, nor her orphaned children. No songs for the missing, mouldering in their secret graves.
This is the lesson of history. If we exalt the tribe over reason; if we sanitise violence; if we allow a diseased preoccupation with an imaginary past to colonise our present; if we allow country shows to become the host for the musical virus of murderous terrorism, then it is to that lesson, and to the bloodshed and poverty which accompany it that we shall almost certainly return.