For the moment, this is the Republic and we must build out from it. The attempts – perhaps rather belated – at understanding and rapprochement are to be commended if the republican ideal of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter is to mean anything today. It was rather telling when Paul Bew, a fine historian and adviser to David Trimble, made the point that the conflict over the last 30 years was the first time that attempts to establish a republic in different generations dating back to the United Irishmen did not have a significant input from the Protestant tradition.