The assembly ends today after ten continuous years. The power-sharing executive is crashed. Public accountability is in turmoil. Electoral discourse is angry and aggressive.
Politics is being diminished through badness (and madness). Moral mudslinging is becoming a messy business. It should never have got to this point. Prolonged instability is never good. Calm heads and positive interventions are urgently needed.
There are many ethical and brave individuals in politics. But we're entitled to expect nothing less from those in elected public life.
However there are many, many more people in private life who practice those attributes everyday – quiet citizens who live their lives with another compelling quality, that of humble courage.
These are people who constantly conquer the real crises and crushing chaos of day-to-day living (often not of their own making); people whose humble courage makes lasting differences to our daily lives on this island, but whom we rarely properly acknowledge.
Some might see it as resilience, or necessity, or just basic choice. Maybe it’s all of those things. But for me, their compelling quality is courage. And it should be celebrated. Because courage is a quality flowing from the depths of the heart: that's where the word originates, 'the heart'.
Courage is what allows our terminally ill friends and family, or those fighting serious ill-health or disability, or those caring constantly for loved ones, to face the future one day at a time - with infectious graciousness and good humour. Some of them sadly won’t be here next week, some not even tomorrow. So let’s take time today to celebrate them.
Courage is what keeps the over-worked, under-paid nurse standing barely upright when they're brought to tears by years of managerial ineptitude, before heading home late to keep a young family going. Celebrate them too.
Courage is what composes the dignity of opponents from our past conflict - victims and actors from different backgrounds – to come together with humility and humanity in heartfelt moments of genuine reconciliation, whether publicly or privately. Celebrate them.
Courage is what motivates the dedicated police officer to rise every morning and work through death threats - or dreadful attacks like Sunday night’s, and ensuring the equal protection of everyone in this society, with integrity and honour. Celebrate them.
Courage is what strengthens people to overcome devastating abuse or tragedy or injustice in their own private histories and yet to keep lifting up others; in the words of Maya Angelou - "the hand at the small of your back" that says "I may let you trip, but I will never let you fall". Celebrate them.
Courage is what drives people to strive and succeed, despite relentless setbacks, in their community or culture or studies or work; to constantly achieve the very best, for themselves and others, in every ordinary detail of everyday life. Celebrate them.
Courage is what inspires the loners and the lovers, the doers and the dreamers, to imagine life beyond its current horizons - as it should be; to illuminate the bleakest moments with golden acts of kindness and generosity; to constantly brighten the blackest nights with simple stars of hope or friendship – helping others to just keep going. Celebrate them.
Celebrate too people like Pat Hume, whose steadfast scaffold for her husband John (80 years old last week) helped ensure that the prize of non-violence is now forever established inviolate for future generations of Ireland.
Celebrate Bernie McGuinness, whose strength is the cornerstone on which her husband Martin was able to build historic bridges of leadership and reconciliation that have lifted this society onto a new plain.
Celebrate Eileen Paisley, whose inherent dignity and inner decency have played a shining influence in shaping positive attitudes, paving a pathway towards the sensitivity and healing that our society so richly deserves.
Celebrate the late Inez McCormack, who lit a flame of empowerment for the most unequal and most excluded citizens, the relevance of which burns ever more brightly as her fourth anniversary passed on Saturday.
Look around. Our lives are overflowing with countless people of humble courage. Each carries a gift of greatness that deserves our fiercest celebration. Yet significant aspects of wider politics are today drowning us collectively in their roaring ocean of negativity.
We must neither tolerate that negativity, nor the consequences it creates. We must rebalance the narrative, in deed and word. We all need and deserve something more positive. So let’s start by recognising the humble courage of remarkable people all around us today. And celebrate them.
