A first memory of Mo Mowlam is of a young, newlyelected MP accompanying, as deputy, the British Labour Party's Northern Ireland spokesman Kevin McNamara to an Anglo-Irish conference in Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire.
The British have an inexhaustible belief in country house diplomacy to solve problems like Northern Ireland in an atmosphere cut off from the modern world. Its efficacy was not evident on that occasion.
When John Smith died tragically in 1994, Mo Mowlam, a fellow north of England MP, was a principal lieutenant of Tony Blair in his leadership campaign. Her reward in being appointed Northern Ireland spokeswoman marked a shift away from the moderate pro-nationalist stance of McNamara and Labour's formal policy through the 1980s of Irish unity by consent.
Whether Labour would ever have been active persuaders for unity is doubtful. That policy was devised as a means of containing pressure from the Labour left for "troops out" and British withdrawal. By 1994, after the Downing Street Declaration, Labour adjusted its position to broad bipartisanship with the John Major government, both on constitutional principles and tactics.
Mo Mowlam did her homework while in opposition, studying the issues, attending conferences, meeting different parties, and acting as conduit to Tony Blair. Unwilling to open any flank for attack that might endanger election victory, Labour refrained from criticising the Tory mishandling of the peace process which contributed to, even if it was not responsible for, the breakdown of the first ceasefire. Labour kept its powder dry, and by the 1997 general election had become almost as acceptable to unionism as the outgoing Conservative administration.
Mo Mowlam became Northern Ireland Secretary of State, and held office during the crucial 12-month period that began with restoration of the IRA ceasefire in July 1997. With Irish help, Labour worked round the demand for immediate decommissioning that was a roadblock to progress at that stage.
She kept her cool in the conference room in July 1997 and gave nothing away when Conor Cruise O'Brien, sitting alongside Robert McCartney on the UKUP delegation, sought formal repudiation of more radical views she had once held on Ireland. Further negotiations at Stormont created conditions of engagement from late September in multi-party talks chaired by former US senator George Mitchell that included Ulster Unionists, loyalists and Sinn Féin, as well as the SDLP, Alliance and Women's Coalition.
As incoming Secretary of State, she made every attempt to be even-handed, and was prepared to be as sympathetic and receptive to unionist as to nationalist and republican views. Her eventual decision to let the Drumcree parade through in 1997 (for the last time) was evidence of that.
Much of the comment about her focuses more on style than substance. Her casual manner and outspoken language were something that not all British civil servants, used to the traditional patrician style exemplified by Sir Patrick Mayhew, appreciated. The Irish delegation had few problems on that front, though occasionally she made even Ray Burke look fastidious.
She was a culture shock to the Ulster Unionist Party, as to some extent was Liz O'Donnell. If Mo Mowlam ended up closer to nationalists, it was because unionists left her little choice, by increasingly refusing to deal substantively with her.
They bypassed her with impunity, by constant recourse to No 10 Downing Street - if not Tony Blair himself, his diplomatic adviser John Holmes, who provided reassuring continuity for them from John Major's time.
Nevertheless, with the help of minister of state Paul Murphy, and partnered on the Irish side by David Andrews, she kept the talks on the road over a difficult eight-month period, even if many strategic negotiations also took place between Downing Street, the NIO, the Taoiseach's Office, Foreign Affairs and Justice. Mo Mowlam made an important and courageous decision to go into the Maze to see loyalist prisoners, when their ceasefire appeared to be collapsing in January 1998, following several murders.
Not only did she hold the ring, albeit with difficulty, but it was the moment the British system realised that agreement would only happen if it involved a radical programme to release paramilitary prisoners, however awful their convictions. She well understood that to obtain peace one had to be prepared to get one's hands dirty.
In the last hours of the Good Friday negotiations, she sat with the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (and this columnist) listening interminably to some 77 unsatisfied demands by Sinn Féin, all requiring answers, not least to satisfy large backroom teams.
While the Government had always striven for agreement bringing everyone present on board, the point had been reached, where, if necessary, continued Government credibility would have required agreement without Sinn Féin (already geared to campaign against changes to Articles 2 and 3).
Mo Mowlam, like the Taoiseach, favoured retaining a special electoral system, which would, most likely, have secured a place in the Assembly for both the Women's Coalition and the loyalists. The loyalist parties mistakenly believed they did not need such arrangements to stay out of the cold, creating problems to this day.
The Good Friday agreement is Britain's finest achievement so far in relation to Ireland. Mo Mowlam is entitled to full credit for her part in that, as the following Labour Party conference affirmed with thunderous applause. It is almost always a mistake for a minister to challenge the prime minister, and she was easily undermined by those who coveted her post for Peter Mandelson. His main positive contribution, in late 1999, was to persuade Ulster Unionists to let the institutions start, however temporarily.
Apart from her deserved place in British Labour Party folklore, Mo Mowlam's courage and down-to-earth approach will ensure that she long retains a warm place in the memory of most Irish people.