The high hopes in the wake of the Belfast Agreement that the next generation of young people in Northern Ireland might come to maturity in a more civilised and tolerant society were dealt a bitter blow this week.
The palpable sectarian hatred on the streets of north Belfast sickened ordinary decent citizens everywhere. The naked hatred that is prepared to make pawns of young children on the first schooldays of their lives is almost beyond belief.
If anyone wanted a glimpse of the alternative to consensus and normal politics they only have to look at the hate-crazed faces of the Ardoyne participants. The consequences of allowing a vacuum to develop in Northern Ireland politics was on display this week with a vengeance.
Despite the alarm bells there is the sinking feeling that politics is again being relegated to the shadows in the North. After an historically courageous SDLP advance, Mr Trimble and the official unionists appear to have lost their way.
As Sinn Fein postures and prevaricates, Trimble could have seized the day and made common cause with the SDLP and isolated Sinn Fein on the crucial issue of policing. Instead he has sent out the worst possible signal in dallying with the DUP extremists.
The SDLP advance is a milestone in the history of nationalist politics and their reward in prospect more and more looks like another election in which they may pay a heavy price in an increasingly polarised environment. Mr Blair and Mr Ahern must be seen to do everything in their power to avoid this and reassert the primacy of politics.
Those who rail against the new policing proposals seem content to live with punishment beatings and the rule of terror in working-class estates. Mr Trimble must rediscover his earlier courage and face down those in his own party who want to disregard the SDLP's advance and move the argument to new obstacles.
One could not but be struck by the contrast with events in this Republic where politics, so frequently unthinkingly derided, began to crank up again. It is not that we don't face challenges of our own but they are of a different character. Accelerating economic downturn, ongoing redundancies, the Chinese visit and our own beloved Taoiseach doing what he does best: posing for photographs with the young stars of Dail na nOg.
This is the stuff of normal politics. If Northern Ireland doesn't pull back from the abyss, it would be foolish to believe that our politics in the Republic will have to engage only with the stable diet of economic and social issues.
Those economic and social issues are already becoming more problematic for Bertie Ahern's Government. A couple of months after he adjusted downwards the Budget surplus by £500 million Charlie McCreevy is already admitting that the adjustment is at least twice that figure.
There, faster than you can say Bertiebowl, goes one new stadium complex. Drapier hears that the consultants are due to report within the next week or so. Spending is already running riot - 24 per cent up on last year - and that supreme optimist, sometimes politician and oftimes trade union leader, Senator Joe O'Toole, is threatening to march on that ATM machine in Merrion Street. Unfortunately ATM machines, even ones disgorging euros, will pay out only whatever is in the account. The figure in Ireland Inc's account is declining by the quarter.
Most colleagues in here have concluded that in this environment Bertie will find it virtually impossible to call the general election before Easter. If he goes now it will be widely believed that he is doing so only to avoid worse news around the corner. And how could he explain it against his trenchant promises to stay the full course? And neither Mary Harney nor the Independents are in any rush to meet the people.
In an otherwise grim week two matters raised a smile in here. Colleagues on all sides smile at Mary Harney's claimed conversion to the cause of the low-paid and middle-income earners when it comes to tax reform. And if it is true that Charlie McCreevy agrees with her, surely these cannot be the same two politicians who for four years did the opposite, on the explicit basis that they had a mandate for tax reductions disproportionately benefiting the higher paid?
Harney and McCreevy would now have us believe that they are prepared to espouse the tax agenda of the rainbow government.
Secondly, Vincent Browne raised quite a chuckle in here with his denunciation of our Taoiseach's failure to stand up to Mr Zhu on human rights. Mr Browne thinks that Mr Ahern ought to have lectured Mr Zhu some more. How would Mr Zhu know? Figuring out Bertiespeak has eluded most of us from time to time.
We had our own internal conflict during the week as the Ceann Comhairle, Seamus Pattison, made plain to committee chairpersons that they would have to dramatically scale back their activity to facilitate the latest parliamentary inquiry.
Notwithstanding the success of the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into DIRT evasion, the system is still not resourced to cope with such an inquiry. Consequently Sean Doherty's committee inquiry into CIE and ESAT, which goes public next week, has had to poach staff from other committees, much to their chagrin. Depending on the duration of the inquiry it may even impede the Government's own legislative agenda.
The Government apparently is committed to immediately reintroducing the Electoral Bill, minus the provisions on opinion polls. The Bill is likely to be engulfed in new controversy as reflection suggests that the supposed ceiling on campaign contributions is bogus and that the Public Offices Commission will view it accordingly. This one will run.