`I wouldn't give the bastards a single bullet!" The speaker was a man close to his 60s. We were both buying our baps in the local bakery, and in the background a radio droned on about decommissioning. The man's words were aimed at the radio, but his anger was directed at me. He was respectfully letting me know that he didn't agree with some of the public statements I'd made recently on the vexed subject of disarmament. He hasn't been the only one.
A few friends of mine, committed republicans, have let me know in no uncertain terms that they don't agree either. Thankfully, though - when we've had the time and the space for proper discussion and debate - a few of them have been gracious enough to concede that I "might have a point".
For the last six weeks I've been arguing that the IRA should make a gesture on decommissioning. As the people who began this peace process, republicans and nationalists should see it through to the end.
Despite the frustration and the prevarication, the advances brought about by the Belfast Agreement ought not to be thrown away.
I have also been pointing out what I thought was obvious: that nationalism is more secure in its own identity and future than is unionism. That should make it more capable of being flexible and magnanimous. I have even disputed the likelihood of another IRA split in the event of an act of decommissioning.
In my view, the major schisms have already occurred with the formation of the Continuity IRA and "Real IRA".
However, there is one serious problem which has to be confronted and which goes right to the heart of republican dogma. Different republicans express it in different ways, but at its core is the sincere and deeply held conviction that any act of decommissioning is an act of surrender, and therefore a betrayal of all those who've died on the republican/nationalist side of the conflict, but most especially of the IRA's volunteers. There is no similar requirement for the British or unionists to betray their dead. This is a powerful and genuine argument, which needs to be understood and respected by anyone who hopes to resolve the deadlock.
SINN Fein sometimes tries to soften the argument at its edges by suggesting that the establishment of the executive and recognition of the party's democratic mandate would make it easier to find a way through the decommissioning morass. In private, republicans admit to dark doubts of their own concerning the existence of arms and explosives dumps in a scenario where the IRA's organisational competence and energies are diminishing.
Omagh, the "Real IRA" and guns in the hands of criminal gangs in Dublin are not completely ignored.
However, to hold respect for the "not a bullet" argument, while at the same time acknowledging that David Trimble needs movement on IRA guns, clearly requires something which is imaginative and courageous. It requires compromise.
I have often criticised the Catholic hierarchy for its caution and ineptitude in relation to the conflict of the last 30 years. But I believe the church can play a crucial role in the next few weeks.
Archbishop Sean Brady should consider leading a number of days of prayer in Armagh Cathedral. The thousands of us who supported the Belfast Agreement and who fear that the peace process may be unravelling might be invited to join him.
Other centres throughout Ireland should be allowed to join in these days of prayer.
In the year since the agreement was signed, people have been bored by the "sameness" of the political debate and apathy has set in. But in recent days we've been confronted by the stark realisation that this process is in serious difficulty - not one of these artificially created, over-hyped crises which arise every so often, but a genuine crisis which threatens the very future of the peace.
At the very least, prayer would alleviate the boredom. But it might also encourage God to surprise us.
If, during this period of prayer, it becomes obvious that the Catholic people want movement, generosity and compromise, then Archbishop Brady should call on the IRA to invite him to witness "an event". Suffice to say it should satisfy him that the process of putting some of the IRA's arsenal" beyond use" has genuinely begun.
This act could be capable of different interpretations, but it should be seen as an act of generosity. It most certainly would not be an act of surrender, something which would be offensive to any republican. In war, one surrenders to one's enemy, not to one's own side, and the vast majority of republicans I know still consider themselves to be Catholic.
It would be helpful if, at the same time, the Protestant churches were to appeal to the loyalist paramilitaries to make a similar gesture and the British government (within whose gift it lies) were to trigger d'Hondt and set up the executive.
Politics, as we're often reminded, is the art of the possible. Less often we're reminded that Christ urged us to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves".
SHORTLY before the "pan-nationalist front" came into being, a very senior official at the Northern Ireland Office (who also belonged to M16) told me that the then British government was scared of being sidelined or, as he colourfully put it, "left sucking the hind tit".
That fear galvanised the British government into drawing up the Framework Document and the Downing Street Declaration. The pan-nationalist front has achieved a lot in a short time. Republicans have been central to such achievements. It's won them the right to be in government and to help shape the new Ireland promised in the Belfast Agreement.
With the peace process in peril now, these advances are under threat. If they were to be lost, it would, in my opinion, be political ineptitude on a monumental scale on the part of Sinn Fein. The last thing any of us needs, though (and this includes unionists), is the sidelining or exclusion of the republican movement from this process - allowing them to be "left sucking the hind tit". For their good, and for ours, it's time Sinn Fein became `as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves'.
Denis Bradley, a film producer based in Derry, has acted as an intermediary between the IRA and the British government.