Telefis Eireann broadcasts a programme, 'Nationwide', Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings at 7:00 p.m. The purpose is to introduce viewers to different places around Ireland, and what the local people are doing. In the summer it makes a practice of visiting various locations which are finalists in the 'Tidy Towns' contest. The interest, for me, is that they manage to give me a snapshot of what is happening all round the country. Very often they focus on an entrepreneur, mostly humble people. For example they might interview a woman who decided to commercialise her ability to make cheese: other times it may be someone who is using modern communications and computer technology to run a successful business from modest homes in remote parts of the country, quite often foreigners, mostly from the European mainland.
Last Wednesday evening there was a unique approach. The subjects were two towns, one in County Leitrim, in the Irish Republic, and the other in County Fermanagh, in the North of Ireland. The approach was to show how people in both places were using their ingenuity, and local resources to develop small businesses, and how they were co-operating with their cross-border neighbours. This is just the latest sign I see that the Good Friday agreement is really working. Who among us ten years ago would have thought that the centuries long hostility might start to disintegrate so fast?
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