IT IS most fitting that, as the traditional season of peace and good will approaches its apogee and when Christ's birth 2,000 years ago is recalled by millions as a focus of hope, love and forgiveness, in Northern Ireland, where hatred has split people for centuries and blood has been spilled for 30 years, its people may enter the new millennium in peace and see it endure and evolve into harmony,

That prospect is symbolised today by two distinctly contrasting events.

One is the setting free for the holiday season of every convicted terrorist in Ulster not yet released by the Good Friday Agreement. Among them are some of the most notorious killers the Troubles have known.

The other is the special broadcast today in which US President Bill Clinton, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, Ireland's Premier Bertie Ahern, Ulster's First Minister David Trimble and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams are among those recalling victims in a programme paying tribute to the 3,637 people killing in the conflict.

What more stark contrast can there be than the innocent dead being commemorated just as murderers walk free to spend Christmas and the New Year with their families?

But what greater symbol of hope can there be when this can actually occur and be accepted - although, no doubt, with many misgivings and regrets, especially among the families of the victims?

But many a bitter pill has to be swallowed in the attainment of the compromise through which peace can be found.

Many compromises have had to be taken so far on the road, as both sides of the divide have come together at a political level to form the Northern Ireland Assembly now enshrining that hope in official form.

And it is a process - frequently calling for hatred to be held back behind bitter tears - that was graphically illustrated in today's broadcast by John Hume, of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

For he told of attending a funeral in 1993 after seven people had been killed in a bar and being condemned at the time for talking to Gerry Adams, of Sinn Fein.

Yet he was told by the daughter of one of the victims that her family had prayed around the coffin of her dead father for the talks to succeed.

Now we glimpse that sentiment taking root in Ulster.

Will we see the IRA and the other paramilitaries back it by the abandonment of their arms - the sharpest test to come in the new year of the strength of the peace process.

But not only is hope strong - the foundations for it are too as this season of peace and goodwill is celebrated.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.