One incident that has always given me hope happened right at the beginning of the recent troubles (the ones that started in 1969), just as things were starting to boil up.

There was an Orange parade due to take place in a place in Donegal, where there was an Orange lodge in existence, even though it's in the Republic.

Anyway there were a few rumours going round about trouble. Then the local IRA got in touch with the press, and issued a warning that anyone who tried to interfere with the Orange parade would be in big trouble, and it went ahead.

The reason I find it hopeful is that it is a reminder that, once the violence has died away, the ideology of a republican movement founded by Wolfe Tone, an atheist protestant, has to be non-sectarian.