Two years ago, the North got the first of its ceasefires when the IRA announced it was stopping its murder campaign. Some weeks later, the loyalists followed suit, adding an apology for the killing they had carried out. The balance sheet today, on the second anniversary of a historic turn of events, is mixed. The IRA called off its ceasefire last February, claiming that the British government had not seized the opportunity it had been given. But, possibly in what it as a qualified resumption, it has confined renewed acts of violence mostly to British cities - apart from the punishment beatings which have continued in an unbroken chain of viciousness.
As for the loyalists, talk of strains within their organisations has alternated with assertions that their ceasefire remains in place. Here again, punishment beatings and the threat to Billy Wright act as a modifier: violence still bubbles below the surface, tempering the hopes of a lasting commitment to peace. The terrible outburst of conflict triggered by Drumcree, and repeated in a number of other places, revealed the enormous power the traditional lines of division between the communities still exert to frustrate the political process. The Orangemen may be fighting windmills of their own imagination, but the anger and fear they arouse when they try to march through areas where they are actively opposed, are very real.
Clearly, the erosion of ancestral attitudes is a precondition for genuine progress; otherwise any movement towards compromise will be automatically cancelled every year by the ritual flauntings of the Orange, Black and Apprentice Boys organisations. The first statement by the new Chief Constable of the RUC, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, after his appointment yesterday, sets the right tone for police involvement. "Building community trust has to be the number one priority", he said. "It is the most importance, objective we have to secure in the immediate future.
Mr Flanagan is enough of a realist to know that the RUC is the meat in the sandwich of community conflict: it is deeply distrusted by large sections on both sides, and rebuilding confidence will not be easy. Among republicans, the demand for root and branch change may be unyielding, but much can be gained nevertheless in the stability that will encourage political dialogue if the RUC can learn to be demonstrably impartial in administering the law and begins to attract new Catholic recruits. It was widely thought that the Northern Ireland Office favoured Mr William Taylor, the head of the City of London Police, and it is to the credit of the Northern Ireland Police Authority that it showed independence in its choice. Mr Flanagan is well known and has a positive profile, and that should ease his path towards achieving his daunting goal.
If, as he also said yesterday, the North, having pulled back from the abyss this summer, will continue to do so, then the political leaders must exert themselves to turn the current de facto ceasefire into a lasting and structured peace. The alternative is drift and vacuum, and an atmosphere of uncertainty that may lead inexorably back to violence. Two factors have been strengthened in recent months: Sinn Fein has undoubtedly benefitted from its organisation of opposition to the Orange marches, which developed the principles of negotiation and consent; and the loyalist politicians have continued to talk better sense than the mainstream unionist parties. If the guns remain silent, who knows what these trends could produce?