20 years after Agreement, museum’s Troubles exhibition shows how far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to go

The Troubles And Beyond exhibition at the Ulster Museum contains artefacts which illustrate the human cost of the conflict, and provides food for thought on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

One example is the signature of a 12-year-old Spanish schoolboy, who signed the visitors’ book at the Ulster American Folk Park just hours before he died in the Omagh bomb along with 28 others and two unborn children.

This exhibit encapsulates the loss of so many lives. The total of 3,637 deaths illustrates suffering on a huge scale.

Yet other objects, including Dame Mary Peters’ Olympic gold medal, shine a little welcome light.

They illustrate that, despite the abnormality all around, people managed somehow to lead a normal existence.

There was a strong desire not to succumb to sectarianism and to prevent a total civil war.

On Good Friday 1998 the sun was rising on a road map for a shared society.

It was far from perfect, but it was a start, and it placed an onus on everyone to try and make it work.

It was encouraged by major figures like President Clinton, and it was regarded globally as a magnificent achievement.

It seems like another world now, and people might ask if such an agreement could be hammered out now. Yet it would be wrong to be relentlessly bleak. The violence has diminished hugely, some power-sharing has been achieved, and there is huge regeneration in many places, including Belfast and Derry/Londonderry.

This Easter weekend is an important time for Christians as a symbol of hope.

Whether of faith or not, people could derive benefit from visiting the Ulster Museum exhibtion to see how far we have come since 1969.

There are no easy answers, but the resolve to make progress is always a good start.