A year ago, as they counted the dead in Omagh and as medical teams laboured to repair the shattered bodies of the injured, the sentiment was universal. This must be the end of the nightmare. Could anyone persist in violence against this backdrop of death, mutilation and pain? But the same sentiments had been expressed and the same question had been asked after Bloody Friday, Talbot Street, South Leinster Street, Parnell Street and Monaghan in 1974, La Mon, Enniskillen, Greysteel and all the other atrocities down the years. Shockingly, the answer had always been in the affirmative. Yes, there were people who would continue to shoot and bomb. In spite of revulsion and condemnation and the grief of bereaved families, the men and women of violence had persisted, adding to the toll of dead and injured.
Nor did Omagh see a final or complete end to violence. The twelve months since have been punctuated by IRA murders and so-called punishment beatings, by a sustained campaign of extremist loyalist violence which took the lives of solicitor Rosemary Nelson and an innocent housewife bombed in her own home and by widespread intimidation throughout the community. Veteran observers have reported that tensions on the ground have been palpably more acute than in the past, as if the very fact of the paramilitary ceasefires has caused pressure to build within communities in which violence has been the normal mode of political expression.
As the first anniversary of the Omagh massacre is marked, Northern Ireland is experiencing what might be described as a limited, armed peace, with periodic reminders from the gunmen that they are still in business. It is, of course, preferable to the sustained campaigns of violence of the paramilitaries. There is relative safety for citizens in most areas. The security forces are not under military-style attack. There can be no doubt that the barbarity which was visited upon the people of Omagh has helped to create and sustain an atmosphere in which the main paramilitaries realise that large-scale violence is at the very least counterproductive to their own interests.
But it would be foolish to believe that this condition, which is neither peace nor war, can be sustained indefinitely in the absence of political progress. And today's marches and counter-demonstrations in Derry and Belfast may regrettably show that ritualised confrontation on the streets is not a thing of the past. If the resumed negotiating process fails to achieve a breakthrough in the autumn, there is every reason to fear that the restraints which have generally prevailed up to now may represent no more than a prelude to resumed, large-scale violence.
Political progress can be achieved in one of two ways in coming weeks and months. Either the Ulster Unionists will make a leap of faith and enter into an executive which includes Sinn Fein or the IRA will make moves to confirm that its guns and bombs will not be used again. Recent events have rendered either initiative more problematic. IRA involvement in the importation of new weaponry and in the Charles Bennett murder have cast the most serious doubts over the organisation's commitment to peace. The Ulster Unionists have hardened their position, making it clear that no trust will be extended, short of the IRA making a verifiable start to decommissioning. Senator George Mitchell will face an even wider gap of understanding when he seeks to bring the two sides together in September.
The primary responsibility for achieving progress rests, as it always has, with those who hold paramilitary weapons - the IRA and its political subsidiary, Sinn Fein. It is additionally regrettable that the Unionists were unwilling to make the leap of faith or to recognise the political advantage which would have accrued from calling the Republicans' bluff by entering into the executive in July. In the end, neither the two governments nor Senator Mitchell can force unionists and republicans to trust each other.