READERS with a sense of irony may recall the certain awkward embarrassment around the 'celebrations' to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. And its 21st.
That's because of the inconvenient political truth that the assembly was suspended on both occasions.
Of course, there is more to the April 1998 power-sharing deal than the assembly alone.
The agreement devised a sort of three-legged stool, of which the assembly is but one limb, albeit the most important and visible.
Unfortunately, the other two legs - structures covering north-south and British-Irish relations - have also become wobbly.
For a long time, the greatest achievement that the agreement's cheerleaders could point to was the fact that the Stormont assembly existed at all.
"At least they're talking and governing now and not bombing and shooting each other any longer," went the Panglossian narrative, despite the silos of evidence that the 'governing' bit in particular was a dysfunctional sham. In this context, 'talking' is a euphemism for bickering over orange and green nonsense.
But by the time January 2017 rolled round, the assembly couldn't even summon the decency to be bothered to exist any longer.
In some respects, its RHI and Irish language-fuelled implosion felt like a mercy.
And though it's six months away, one doesn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to surmise that the agreement's 22nd anniversary won't be any different.
On the available evidence, even Inspector Clouseau or Chase from Paw Patrol could work it out.
It is more than a little dispiriting to realise that we are nearing another anniversary which is also less a milestone than it is a millstone.
On December 2, 1999, Westminster formally devolved power to Stormont; it is hard to imagine there will be much appetite or enthusiasm to mark December 2, 2019 with street parties and firework displays.
Twenty years is a Methuselah in political terms. The first assembly's biggest parties were the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, for example. And none of the members of the first executive are MLAs today; indeed, only one, the DUP's Nigel Dodds, is still an elected representative.
That first assembly only made it to February 2000 before tensions over IRA decommissioning led to its collapse and suspension.
It was back in business that May but three more IRA-related suspensions of the 'they haven't gone away, you know' variety followed, with the longest running from October 2002 until May 2007.
By then, in what proved to be tremendous news for Spads, the DUP and Sinn Féin had overtaken the UUP and SDLP as the largest unionist and nationalist parties.
Stormont allowed itself to be sucked into a zero-sum game of pseudo-culture wars, with arguments around flags and language. Little wonder there has been almost no public clamour for the cacotopian assembly, with its cast of snollygosters and throttlebottoms, to return
Some key parts of the original Good Friday Agreement had also been usurped; a deal concocted at St Andrews in 2006 to ease Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin into power-sharing abandoned the idea that the first and deputy first ministers should be elected by cross-community vote.
Instead, those jobs fell to the largest single party representing each community block.
The consequences of this change have been far-reaching. It cemented the decline of the UUP and SDLP and marginalised more moderate unionist and nationalist voices.
It also opened the door on the sort of sectarian politicking that made - to give one example - 'unless you want Martin McGuinness as first minister, you better vote DUP' a winning election message.
The 'them and us' approach bred distrust between the two big parties and disdain for the smaller parties.
Stormont departments became fiefdoms, accountability through assembly committees something to be sneered at.
Rather than deliver on public services like health, education and infrastructure, Stormont allowed itself to be sucked into a zero-sum game of pseudo-culture wars, with arguments around flags and language. Sectarianism and silo mentalities trumped power-sharing and consensus politics.
Little wonder there has been almost no public clamour for the cacotopian assembly, with its cast of snollygosters and throttlebottoms, to return.
It isn't much of a legacy, is it?
