Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I forged a bond with her father and finally he said to me, "You're my favourite wee Fenian", which was fine except for the word "wee". I took exception to that. We forged all of those friendships. I am still friends with some of the people I met 30 years ago. We did that against the backdrop of RUC land rovers, armed RUC patrols and checkpoints, the Ulster Defence Regiment going around in armoured personnel carriers and the British army. That was just part of the backdrop because for me, the most interesting part of that experience was meeting our fellow islanders and realising that there is nothing to be afraid of. We can celebrate each other's identity and reach out and embrace each other.

The reason I say this is because after I graduated from Trinity, I did a really stupid thing. I joined the Army. Now, as a grown-up, I realise that I would not recommend it to everybody. I found myself suddenly on the Border. I remember a particular checkpoint just north of Monaghan town in what we called the salient going into Fermanagh and south Tyrone. There were a stream of cars coming South. It was coming up to 12 July.

There was a kind of traditional exodus. It was a very warm evening and the windows of the cars were rolled down. We were at the checkpoint where I remember a child pointed at me from the back seat of the car and told his Daddy and Mummy to look at the wee Irish Brit. I thought it was very funny because, for that child, "Brit" meant somebody in uniform carrying a weapon. Having been on, if you like, the front line - without being too dramatic - we went from a situation in which we were carrying firearms on the Border or in the towns, villages, streets and byways of Northern Ireland to one in which that, to a greater or lesser extent, has been eliminated.

As part of my military service, I served in the Middle East and saw communities in Lebanon that were divided along sectarian and ethnic lines. I was at a meeting in Beirut where we saw Sheikh Nasrallah of Hezbollah talking about having the Koran in one hand and the Kalashnikov in the other. I remembered hearing talk in Ireland about having a ballot box in one hand and an Armalite in the other and I realised people all over the world are exactly the same. One of the problems in Lebanon was the fact that communities were educated separately and kept apart. It created suspicion, fear and conflict.

My last overseas experience was in the former Yugoslavia. My good colleague mentioned West Germany and East Germany. I do not mean to be alarmist but I do not believe Ireland is analogous to East and West Germany. It is more analogous to the experience I had in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, because of the highly developed identities, traditions and cultures that cannot be amalgamated. We have to live together by whatever means. Senator McDowell has promised to send me an article he has written about all of the different models for how we might do so. It is very important to remember that we are all the same, essentially, and that there is nothing to be afraid of.

Whatever happens on this island in the next ten or 15 years, it will not be Senator McDowell, me, or anybody here - I will not mention the older people - who will have to navigate that. It will be the young people such as those in Foróige, the National Youth Council of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Youth Forum, my 21-year-old and 20-year-old sons and my 18-year-old daughter. They will live the next step of the peace process. I echo my fellow Senators' sentiments to get involved. I know that I am speaking to a group of people who are already involved and engaged, but there is faith among those of us with the grey hair-----