Because of the puritanism of both the Protestant and Catholic traditions in Ireland morality is seen to be mainly about sex – and key figures in both the DUP and Sinn Fein are currently embroiled in issues to do with sex.

But the accession of Arlene Foster to Acting First Minister reminds us of some of the wider (and perhaps more substantive) moral issues – father shot in the head by the IRA, a bomb under her school bus.  This was hardly a ‘normal’ upbringing.  And, of course Northern Ireland’s historic injustices on the ethnic frontier have to be factored into the moral reckoning as well.

The compromise brought by the Good Friday Agreement and confirmed by the St Andrews Agreement also brought a compromised society.  These agreements were acts of ambiguity and brought contradictory and uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings.  Our politics is a politics in which optimism is held in check – but also the abyss we nearly fell into is held at bay.  This is a world hard to describe, and seems to require the recourse of fiction.

The compromise which brought a compromised society revolves around significant actors not taking responsibility for their actions – the fiction of innocence.  The cost of a settlement is living in a semi-permanent grey zone.

Some countries after the Second World War created ‘fictions’, e.g. France and Austria.  Most people were in the Resistance or supported it in France, the myth of ‘innocent’ Austria badly done by, by Germany.  The rage against ‘innocent’ Austria was expressed in the fiction of certain post-war Austrian writers.  Some of the writings of the German writer W.G. Sebald explore silence in a world of grey.  J.M. Coetzee’s brilliant novel Disgrace explores the ambiguities of post-apartheid.  We need to explore ambiguity and silence in Northern Ireland – and this requires subtle moral reasoning.

David Stevens

Leader of the Corrymeela Community