But first it would be well to be clear about what I understand to be the function of a Keynote Address. I do not understand that function to mean that I am to deliver an Address with which all, or almost all of you, would be likely to be in agreement. Such an Address would be pretty anodyne and boring and it would not be worth your while to listen to it, or for me to deliver it. I think the basic requirement of a Key note Address is that its central subject matter should be one that seriously concerns all or most of the listeners. Once that criterion is met, the Keynote Speaker should be free to set forth his own personal views quite frankly, without concerning himself about whether his listeners are or are not in agreement with all or part of those views.

Accordingly, I propose to confine the main body of my remarks to what I regard as most important in the political and institutional changes in Northern Ireland and to identify the nature of these changes. I shall have almost nothing to say about the extremely elaborate institutional changes which are supposed to constitute the consummation of the so-called peace process. I doubt whether these changes will ever come to full fruition, and if they do I doubt whether they can command lasting agreement.

All the same, some very important, novel, extraordinary, and in my view sinister developments have being taking shape, engaging only casual and desultory public attention, under cover of the same soothingly named 'peace process'. The most disturbing of these sinister developments were referred to by Mo Mowlem, in the last period of her responsibility as Secretary of State to Northern Ireland, under the characteristically trendy, and euphemistic description of "internal housekeeping".

When the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was questioned about what she meant by that nauseating euphemism, the sinister meaning of it became all too clear. In essence, "internal housekeeping" means that paramilitary groups are now recognised by the British authorities as free to run the areas they choose to regard as 'their own' in whatever ways they choose, subject to certain specified limitations. As long as they refrain from attacking British soldiers and the members of the RUC, or persons living in communities other than those as recognised as being within their jurisdiction, they can run their 'own' territories just as they like. Mo Mowlem was defending her own decision not to treat a recent murder, which she acknowledged to have been committed by the IRA, as a breach of the IRA cease-fire. Rather the murder was covered by this novel doctrine of 'internal housekeeping'.

Novel in being explicitly acknowledged for the first time in public; in practice, I expect that this has been current for some years, as part of the esoteric language of the peace processes, to express their policy of tacit collaboration, within certain agreed limits, with the paramilitary authorities since they are now no less.

Within a day or so of the public announcement of the acceptability of 'internal housekeeping' in the eye of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA served sentence of exile on a number of residents of Northern Ireland, on pain of immediate execution if those designated elect to remain in the Province. All those so sentenced left Northern Ireland immediately. What else could they do? They had just been told, by the Secretary of State, speaking officially, that they were outside the protection of the law. The doctrine of ''internal housekeeping' placed them at the disposition of the paramilitaries, whether to be murdered, tortured or exiled at the sole discretion of the paramilitaries themselves.

The rule of law has gone out the window as far as most of Northern Ireland is concerned. Large areas of Northern Ireland no longer enjoy the rule of law. Instead, they have a version of 'peace process' which hands them over to the domination of armed gangs, with the assent and apparent approbation of Her Majesty's Government.

These malign developments are not entirely confined to Northern Ireland. They have also begun to affect the territory of the Republic. This is not surprising as the political parties there have mostly been enthusiastic supports of this peculiar peace process and the Government of the Republic hailed Mo Mowlem's 'internal housekeeping' statement as 'courageous'. When the paramilitary murderers of Garda McCabe were placed on trial in the Republic, the authorities were obliged to modify the charges against them, because witnesses who had agreed to testify had then been forced to withdraw. The authorities agreed that that is what happened, but none of them seemed to feel that anything could be done about it. The Dublin Government had no comment to make about the chilling developments happening within their jurisdiction.

Similarly, very recently, a distinguished American scholar who had worked in a particular area of the Republic was frozen out of the area in which she had worked by order of the local IRA, through threats against her own person and the persons of anyone who might harbour her. In the Republic, as in Northern Ireland, there are now areas which are outside the rule of law, and under the control of paramilitaries, with no effective right of appeal against that cruel and arbitrary exercise of power.

I am not saying that this situation is now irreversible. What I am saying is that the longer it continues, the harder it will be to reverse. If people feel – as many now do – in both parts of Ireland, North and South, that the police will be powerless to help them, then they will no longer look to the police, but acquiesce in the rule of the terrorists.

And the more people feel the police are helpless, the more helpless the police will be in poor areas, Catholic or Protestant, North or South, the paramilitaries are on the spot, in vigilant and often menacing contact with their neighbours. Not being in uniform, they are indistinguishable from the neighbours whom they dominate. The police, on the other hand, are conspicuous, and persons in contact with them are also conspicuous and promptly endangered. Under these conditions, any police force is in danger of becoming isolated and ineffective.

That process is not yet dominant in many parts of Ireland and probably In most of Ireland. But the longer the process goes on, the harder it will be to restore the habit of being policed: a habit which is at the centre of the maintenance of law and order throughout the civilised world. Civilised order still exists in mainland Britain. But in large parts of Northern Ireland, with the active consent and approval of Her Majesty's Government, that civilised order has ceased to exist. And the same applies, though as yet to a much lesser extent, to the Republic of Ireland.

And these malign changes have all been carried out under the benign language and sleazy euphemisms of the so-called peace process.

It may not yet be too late to call a halt. I am not sure. There are some hopeful signs of an increasing tendency in some quarters, to see the slippery slope, and try to check the speed of the descent. But this tendency is still hesitant and insufficient as yet to abate the sinister momentum of 'internal housekeeping' now at the heart of the peace process.

There is also a disturbing imbalance of efficacy between the paramilitaries on the one hand, and the democratic parties on the other. The Provisional IRA, in particular, has acquired formidable political skills. This is a fairly new phenomenon dating from shortly after 1985. Up to then, they had mostly been battering away as terrorists, without real political calculation. But in that year, they started learning about politics, from John Hume. Before 1985, the nationalist parties, in the so-called Forum, had offered a set of three political alternatives, of which the preferred and strongest was a united Ireland and the mildest was 'joint administration'. To all of these proposals Margaret Thatcher retorted with her famous 'out,out,out!'.

That would have been that, had not the genius of John Hume perceived that a weaker formula than any of those offered by the Forum would serve nationalist interests much better. So he came up with "consultative status" for the Government of the Republic, in any future discussions leading to decisions over the future of Northern Ireland. Margaret Thatcher, without any advance consultations with the Unionists of Northern Ireland, agreed to a deal which meant that the Government of the Republic would be consulted about the future of Northern Ireland, in discussions from which the Unionists would be excluded. This meant, and still means, that the nationalists are in the inside track of decision making, while the Unionist majority in Northern Ireland are on the outside looking in. This became the basic framework of the peace process as we now know it.

Formally, Sinn Féin was opposed to 'consultative status' because it appeared an abatement of the Forum proposition, and so seemed to weaken the nationalist front. But in practice, Sinn Féin – IRA were delighted with how the Unionists had been outmanoeuvred. I watched Gerry Adams on television the day of the announcement of the deal. Formally, he enunciated Sin Féin's rejection of the compromise. But his wolfish grin, as he discussed the deal, told a very different story.

On that day, Sinn Féin learned important lessons, of which they have never since lost sight. The main lesson is not to insist on getting everything you want all at once. Be content, for the moment, with small attainable gains. But once you have registered on gain, move on immediately to the next demand. In doing so, used implied threats of renewed violence if your demands are not met. Sound reasonable, but also fairly menacing until the point where you need to sound driven beyond endurance.

This strategy has served the Provos exceedingly well, and continues to serve them right now. As against that, the democratic leadership, both in Britain and in the Republic, appears to have no strategy al all. Both Tony Blair and Bertie Ahearn have considerable political skills, but of a tactical kind. The are consummate spin-doctors, both of them, and that is all they are. And, unfortunately, when a spin-doctor has to deal with a political strategist, the spin is likely to be made to serve the strategy rather than the other way round.

Sinn Féin will shed no tears when the peace process, as we know it, lurches to an untidy end. The will be seen as having stuck with the process loyally to the end, and they will do their best to ensure that the Unionists appear, in Britain, the Republic and in America as exclusively to blame for the collapse of the peace process.

Sinn Féin will seek to cash in on their brownie points for their 'loyalty to the peace process'. And they already know the immediate reward they want. Their reward is the 'reform', by which they mean the castration, of the RUC. Under cover of the agitation around the Patton report, they hope to achieve a considerable measure of what they want. They are demanding the complete disbandment of the RUC and its replacement by what they call 'citizen policing', which would mean, in practice, that each set of paramilitaries would be left to police their own turf: a formalised extension of a system which already exists informally.

Sinn Féin, being realistic and well-informed, are aware they are not going to get all that, this time around. But they know that whatever reforms are obtained, following Patton, will be seen by the RUC itself as extorted by the blackmail of the people who have murdered over three hundred members of the force. They will, therefore, hope that a renewed IRA offensive, against a demoralised police force, would meet with greater success than previous campaigns did. And they would have what is, from their point of view, a plausible pretext for resumption, in the 'inadequacy' of the reform measures instituted by the Government, following the Patton report.

The IRA would hope – and, on past form, expect – that a renewed campaign would speedily be followed by a renewed 'cessation of military operations' and continuing blackmail of the type with which we have become familiar in successive phases of the peace process.

It may be, however, that the IRA will be disappointed next time round. There are already signs of a growing revulsion among the public against what the peace process has come to mean, with the premature release of convicted murderers, and with the official recognition of 'internal housekeeping'. Revulsion against all that may come to a head when the IRA, after all the concessions accorded it, again has widespread recourse to the use, as distinct from the threat, of violence. If so, there will be a return to the old-fashioned policy that vigorous repression, rather than attempted conciliation, is the correct response of a democratic state to attempts at violent subversion by an armed minority.

Conor Cruise O'Brien is Ireland's most distinguished man of letters who has, in his time, been diplomat, special assistant to the UN Secretary General, university vice-chancellor, government minister, journalist, biographer, historian, playwright, and elected politician in both parts of Ireland.

Some navigational notes: