Sometimes the hardest thing is to dare to hope. The people of Northern Ireland are wary. They have seen so many new dawns over the past 30 years. Away from the scrum (some would say slum), at Castle Buildings where the media and the politicians feed on a mutual frenzy for headlines, the general reaction is much more cautious. Yesterday morning, a British television reporter asked a young woman what she felt: "on this wonderful Good Friday?" She replied with the one word "Trepidation". Billy Hutchinson, the impressive PUP spokesman, understands this very well. "It's only the beginning," he kept saying "The work starts now."
It has become a cliche but nonetheless true, to describe Northern Ireland as a deeply dysfunctional society. Through the years of conflict each community has clung for comfort to its own tribal certainties. "The unionists will never move." "You can't trust Sinn Fein/IRA." Now they're being asked to take an enormous amount on trust. It hasn't helped that the past few days have seen such a confusion of clashing emotions. How can a settlement be seriously grounded when the unionists are saying one day that George Mitchell's draft agreement is "a Sinn Fein wish list" and are followed within hours by Sinn Fein saying it has "serious problems with the negotiations?"
And yet, when one has entered these caveats, there's been a real sense of a new beginning unfolding in these unlikely surroundings, which some commentators have compared to a shanty town in South Africa. Journalists like myself should not be so surprised that a deal has come together, though there are still difficult times ahead. The men and women who have been coming to Castle Buildings for the past 22 months have brought considerable political skills to their task and formidable resilience. They have stuck at it because they want to make a new and better reality for their communities. They have had in George Mitchell a chairman who has been equally determined not to allow the personal frustrations and snubs, which he has carried with dignity, stand in the way of getting the job done.
In one way, the relative lack of euphoria on the streets is understandable, a protection against disappointment. But it is also dangerous. This deal needs a groundswell of popular support to put wind in its sails. Huge challenges lie ahead almost immediately for the politicians. David Trimble has to face the sceptics in his own party this weekend over issues like decommissioning and the release of prisoners. The Rev Ian Paisley may not be able to muster great numbers to protest at Stormont, as he did in the past, but, as he reminded us, he is still a formidable vote-getter. One of the most worrying aspects of the whole process is how little time David Trimble has devoted to preparing the broad unionist community for change.
Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein have gone a lot further down this road in saying that they do not expect to see a united Ireland in the immediate future. But they still have to win the argument at their ardfheis next weekend and face the possibility of more bitter wrangling in the future. As I write, it has been a long Good Friday and it is not over yet. But these past weeks have shown it is possible for reason, argument and compromise to win over fear, confrontation and violence. We spend so much time reviling politicians, saying they are all in the job for what they personally can get out of it. Here at Castle Buildings for all the highs and lows which have been inseparable from the process of negotiation, we have seen politics practised as an art which can rescue a society from savagery and fear - the conduct of war by other means. This has been done by quite ordinary men and women - teachers, lawyers, mothers worrying about the logistics of child minding, former prisoners - who have emerged from this bitterly divided society united by a common belief that democratic politics can provide the means for Northern Ireland to escape from the bonds of a tragic past.