The Belfast Telegraph leader article .. Actor Liam Neeson, in town to collect his Freedom of Ballymena award, summed up the Northern Ireland of today quite astutely. He noted the enormous strides that have been made in the past decade in politics and society in general.
And he recognised that those changes occurred not by accident, but through a combination of courage, generosity and persistence. Those are the virtues which are still needed today.
At times it is easy to get dispirited. The flag protests, the graveside orations lauding Dolours Price as a liberator, not as a terrorist, and the visit of the unwanted Martin Galvin to welcome another terrorist, Gerry McGeough, out of prison this week. It is like a rewind of our troubled times when violence, or the praise of violence, was a daily occurrence.