At the time of the Good Friday Agreement, there was a sense that the people of the north were in need of a rest.
It was not hard to detect that we were a tired people who were exhausted by the push and pull of conflict merging into politics.
The slow and torturous road to peace was emotionally draining and the agreement was sufficient for the time.
The outstanding and unresolved issues, especially the constitutional question, would wait for a time when we were all less tired.
It was a sensible argument but, like many political conundrums, it had as many negatives as positives.
Looking back, it might have been better to have grasped the constitutional nettle at that time.
Getting the attention and the resolve of one government is difficult, getting two in synch is near miraculous.
The agreement provided for a border poll that would happen when the secretary of state deemed it likely that a majority in the north would vote for such a change.
Recent state papers reveal that David Trimble argued for a poll to take place at an upcoming general election but was told to ‘get lost’ by Tony Blair.
Trimble thought, probably correctly, that unionism would win that vote and that would put the constitutional issue to bed for a generation.
The governments and nationalist parties were, understandably, hostile to such an early border poll but it is worth a quick examination of its merits.
It would have forced the British to better define the triggers for a poll.
It would have pressurised the Irish into a properly costed plan for the desirability and the implementation of unity.
It would have forced unionism into the debate about the future of the island and the relationships within it. It would have moved them beyond the fear that any involvement in any debate was, for them, an admission of defeat.
And, by now, we would have had at least one further poll, given the change of demographics.
But that was the ‘might’ and the ‘maybes’ of then; the present question is, where are we now?
The only people who have any empirical knowledge of these issues are the descendants of the Protestant people who were left behind on the southern side of the border, most especially in the Ulster counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.
In a recent conversation with a couple of these people, there was an acknowledgement of the complexity and sensitivity of the unanswered issues left behind at the agreement.
There was certainly impatience with the continuing sectarian politics of the north, but equally with the self-interested attitude of southern politics and people who would prefer if northern attitudes and problems didn’t interfere with the ‘grand’ wee country they have in the south.
Time was also an issue. To allow the natural change that only time brings about was an attractive option and yet being aware of the amazing attitudinal changes that are happening so quickly, especially at the religious level and particularly amongst the young.
But it was my challenge as to why these people didn’t speak more loudly and definitively into these matters that provoked the most interesting and insightful response.
To take ownership of such a voice, they explained, would be differencing themselves from their neighbours.
Ownership of such a voice could insinuate that their voice was different from the voice of their Catholic neighbour. That they were latter-day Irish, less Irish than their neighbour, or less Irish than me. And that is both wrong and perhaps insulting.
That clarity of identity is possibly a tribute to Ireland and simultaneously a reminder that in the constitutional debate that is inevitable in the coming years, the same import and respect is afforded those who live on this island and see themselves as British.
There is depth to the poll, beyond the ticking of a ballot paper. There is responsibility on the governments that that depth be integral to the debate.