My best friend was indeed a Rangers supporter. Also a more tolerant, non-bigoted person you couldn't wish to meet. He just happened to have been born into a Protestant family in a working class area of Glasgow. I respected his tradition and he respected mine.

If more people in NI could do that, begin to put the past behind them, not forget it - that's impossible, but to look to the future, for the sake of coming generations, then there would be some hope. Constantly blaming and demonising the other side only prolongs the agony. It will prevent NI society from ever getting out of the mess that it is in. That's supposed to be an important part of the GFA: mutual tolerance and respect for cultural diverstity.                                                      

The ideal would be for the Prods to start going to GAA games and for Catholics to applaud Orange walks. In the meantime some smaller steps can be taken: like taking religion out of the schools, no prayers, no nothing, strictly secular, with all kids in together to let them see that "them over there" are just human beings like themselves not the demons of the other side's propaganda. If parents want their kids to be religious, teach them themselves, it should be a private matter, leave the State out of it. Unfortunately the hardliners on both sides, blue and green, don't want to even begin to know about coming together and cultural diversity - for them it's all or nothing, no surrender.