Giok's point is beyond argument. There were far greater iniquities in South Africa, and much more recently, yet that nation has found a way forward through the truth and reconciliation process.

Around the world millions can look back on hideous behaviour by colonising nations, the Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians, Spanish, Germanm, French, Portuguese... and latterly the Americans. Often these nations also treated their own underclasses despicably.

The wonder is how readily many victims or such behaviour, or whose ancestors were victims,have been prepared to work for reconciliation as the best prospect for the future.

The tragedy is the few who let their lives be eaten up with a bitterness that does no good to anyone. For some reason, nearly all of those few are to be found in Northern Ireland. Certainly there are many more of them in Northern Ireland than in the Republic of Ireland, whose population suffered just as greatly from those historic wrongs that Ard harps on about.

But then perhaps the true cause of catholic bitterness in the north is not the Brits at all, but their fellow catholics in the south - the freestaters, by whom they believe they were sold out. Yet if Dev had accepted the will of Collins and the freestaters (which incidentally was the will of the elected Irish parliament) a united, independenet Ireland would have been achieved decades ago. In the event, the rebels caused such mayhem in the south that a "protestant parliament for a protestant people" was free to run amok in the north, almost unnoticed beyond the bounds of its own legislature.