A political first was achieved in Northern Ireland last night when the Democratic Unionist Party's Mr Gregory Campbell travelled to the nationalist and republican Falls Road to debate at the west Belfast Festival.
The MP for East Londonderry received a warm welcome from the large crowd at St Louis's Comprehensive School who turned out for the debate which also featured the former Sinn Féin lord mayor, Mr Alex Maskey, with Mr Gerry Adams and, no doubt, some senior IRA figures looking on from the audience.
While the heat in the auditorium sometimes shot up, the mood was civil.
Neither Mr Campbell, nor Mr Maskey, nor the audience compromised their positions while arguing with fairness and force.
Mr Campbell said that he was speaking without the armoury of the "Provos and Shinners".
He was in west Belfast "to use the force of his logic and reason, not the force of my guns because I don't have any.
"At the moment I am a second class citizens in terms of guns".
A member of the audience asked had Mr Maskey betrayed his republicanism by laying a wreath at the Belfast cenotaph in memory of the dead of two world wars.
Mr Maskey defended his action but Mr Campbell was unimpressed.
It was ludicrous that Mr Maskey or republicans should expect a "free ride" or praise for this when the IRA was engaged in "murder, racketeering, intimidation and arson".
Mr Campbell was also asked about his leader, the Rev Ian Paisley's view that Sinn Féin as well as the IRA should be disbanded.
He said the two organisations were inextricably linked but if Sinn Féin severed that connection "then that would be a gesture that would deserve to be responded to".
"When the IRA starts dismantling its armoury then that would be a signal that its war is over," he added.
Mr Campbell said that the Bloody Sunday inquiry would not establish the truth about the 14 killings and he disputed the spending of £100 million so far on the tribunal.
"That is £100 million more than was spent into the deaths of thousands of unionists because we have not had a penny spent."
Other subjects for discussion included Iraq, Israel, Palestine, support for the Irish language vis-à-vis Ulster Scots, and gay rights.
