When Tony Blair cracks open the champagne at his villa in Tuscany tomorrow, to toast the first 100 days of new Labour in government, let us hope he raises a glass or two to Northern Ireland. Mo Mowlam struck a deliberately cautious note when she made a speech to mark the occasion in Belfast this week. That was shrewd and tactful. The people of Northern Ireland have had more than enough of British ministers hailing the dawning of a bright new day - and blaming them when it failed to materialise.
The Northern Secretary stressed the difficulties that still lie ahead, the legacy of mistrust in both communities that has to be overcome. But she also spelt out what has been achieved in this first hundred days and endorsed the hope that it could provide a solid base for building a better future.
It's worth recalling, briefly, just how bleak the situation seemed 14 weeks ago. It was as though the dying days of the Conservative government had not only dragged the peace process to a halt, but exhausted everyone involved in it. People clung to the hope that a new government in Britain with a strong majority would put it back on the rails. But it was hard to believe that Tony Blair, who had expressed little interest in Northern Ireland as leader of the Opposition, would place it high on his agenda.
The relationship between Sinn Fein and the government of this State seemed to have broken down completely. Patience with Gerry Adams's difficulties was wearing very thin, in Washington as well as Dublin. There was a bleak question mark over his ability "to deliver" the IRA. Even John Hume was saying that if there was no ceasefire he would go into substantive talks without Sinn Fein. David Trimble, having enjoyed a relationship of special privilege with John Major, seemed confident that nothing very much would change if Tony Blair was elected.
Enough said, I hope, to make the case this has been 100 days to confound those who had lost faith in the art of politics. I share the concern of many British friends about the direction of the New Labour government, its lack of commitment to equality and its ruthless dedication to the exercise of power. But on Northern Ireland Tony Blair has moved with speed and resolution. His obvious toughness is one of the reasons that politicians in the North take him seriously. There were others, in both parts of Ireland and the United States who played an important role in helping Sinn Fein to bring about the IRA's second ceasefire.
The ending of the violence was essential for a new beginning. But the urgency of Tony Blair's initiative, backed up by the energy and guts of his Secretary of State, have already had the effect of concentrating minds in Northern Ireland in a way we have not seen before. The timing has also been important. It has, perhaps inevitably, taken a very long time for both communities in Northern Ireland to come to terms with the compromises that are going to be necessary if a realistic settlement is to be achieved. But Tony Blair, by making it quite clear that he is in a hurry and will not be deflected from his objective, has also put it up to Northern Ireland politicians that it is time they faced up to the hard choices that lie ahead.
This necessarily involves educating their own supporters to move beyond the reassuring political certainties of the past. One has only to see how Gerry Adams has begun to alter the emphasis of the Sinn Fein agenda. Yes, as a republican he will argue the case for a united Ireland, but Sinn Fein will accept the principle of consent which means that in the forthcoming negotiations the main task is to achieve full equality and parity of esteem for the nationalist community in the North. This is a seismic shift in terms of traditional republican objectives and one which has already had a powerful impact on the leadership of unionism.
In some ways, the change in David Trimble's tone in recent weeks has been as remarkable as anything we have heard from Sinn Fein. He won't thank me for saying so, but there have been times when the UUP leader has begun to sound like John Hume. In last week's Sunday Independent he wrote of his vision of "a Northern Ireland at ease with itself where everyone has a part to play in the healing of our divided society. Fairness, pluralism and the celebration of diversity must shape our future together". These are genuinely challenging words and the UUP has already tried to put some flesh on them by inviting Catholic Church leaders to take part in meetings it is arranging over the next few weeks to discuss the talks process.
As Mo Mowlam said in her speech on Monday, I don't want to sound unduly "dewy eyed" about all this. Nobody with an ounce of political sense could feel confident that the peace in Northern Ireland is secure. The threat of random violence, apparently beyond the control of the main paramilitary groups, could derail the whole process. The savage murders of individual Catholics, killed just because they are Catholics as opposed to the targeting of property by disaffected republican groups, is a particular worry. These sectarian killings terrify the Catholic community and make it even more difficult for Sinn Fein to approach the issue of decommissioning IRA weapons in any conciliatory way.
On the unionist side, there are very many people who are still deeply suspicious, not only of the IRA but of the constitutional ambitions of the government of this State. Geoff Martin, the editor of the News Letter, wrote an important article in this newspaper yesterday, explaining the dilemma of very many unionists who believe that the whole purpose of the peace process (including Tony Blair's famous "settlement train") is to weaken the union with Britain. His paper has taken a consistent line in arguing in favour of negotiation and change and his criticisms of a lack of generosity by politicians in this State deserves to be taken seriously.
One example of this is a very common reaction down here to the Rev Ian Paisley. There is almost a sense that his walking out of the talks does not matter because he is a bigot who will never change. But Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party represents that section of the unionist population which, arguably, most needs to be given reassurance about the future. To talk about inclusive talks without Paisley is as absurd as accepting the exclusion of Sinn Fein, which is why Mo Mowlam is absolutely right to try and bring him back into the negotiations.
In spite of all these difficulties - and many more to come, in all probability - these have been a hundred days of hope. If we are doing as well at the end of the next hundred, we may yet see the new Northern Ireland which Mo Mowlam described as being on the horizon - "a thriving civil society with prosperity that benefits the many, not the few".