Sometimes an apology is easier to give than to receive. We all know it from our own lives. The one who says sorry can sit back, happy that the moral high ground is theirs, that they have done their bit. But the person who has been handed the apology, what can they do? They may not be ready to accept it; they may still feel too bitter to forgive. Yet if they reject it, they will be damned as obstinate and mean-spirited. As it is around the kitchen table, writ small, so it is in Northern Ireland this week, writ large and tragic. On Tuesday the IRA offered its "sincere apologies and condolences" to the families of those "non-combatants" it killed or injured during the 30 years of the Troubles. In a statement cast more in the language of psychotherapy than armed struggle, the IRA declared an end to "denying collective failures and mistakes or closing minds and hearts to the plight of those who have been hurt". In nine short paragraphs, the IRA used the word hurt three times, pain and grief twice each. And, in a break from past form, it blamed the British government not once.  Still, like so many apologies, this one will not be enough to heal the divided Northern Irish family. You could tell that straightaway. Some unionists followed the lead of Tom Donnelly, whose sister was killed on Bloody Friday - the 1972 IRA atrocity the imminent anniversary of which prompted the latest statement. He confessed himself overwhelmed by the apology, which he said gave him great hope.  But others, perhaps most, were cynical. They dismiss the IRA's words as yet another ploy by the republican movement to further its own political ends.   Specifically, they note a looming deadline: next Wednesday the British government has to declare whether or not the IRA is sticking to its ceasefire. If the answer is no, then Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble - who set the deadline - will demand Sinn Fein be ejected from Northern Ireland's self-ruling executive. To sceptical unionist eyes this week's apology was "pure PR", an IRA attempt to get into Tony Blair's good books before judgment day.  Which says something about the mood on the unionist street. Support for the Good Friday agreement remains strong among the business community and the well-heeled. But among the rank and file, says one senior UUP official, deep disenchantment has set in. Plenty of unionists regarded the 1998 deal as a "moral outrage" from the beginning - they were only prepared to hold their tongue in the hope that republicans were serious about "getting out of the violence business".  But the past 12 months have eroded what little faith there was in republicanism's peaceful intentions, say unionists. Last August's arrest of three republican operatives in Colombia, later charged with collaboration with the FARC narco-terrorist movement, blew the first major hole in unionist confidence. The March break-in at the Castlereagh security building - when ultra-sensitive security files were stolen - and ongoing street violence in Belfast have done the rest of the damage.  Now, say unionists, disillusion is so deep that if elections for the Northern Ireland assembly - due next May - were held tomorrow, Ian Paisley's anti-agreement Democratic Unionists would sweep Trimble's party to oblivion. Blair, they say, has to reassure unionists fast.   One move they would like to see next week, and which they insist is possible, is an American return to the peace process, in the form of a US team flown in to judge ceasefire compliance. Any envoy appointed by George "war on terror" Bush would be trusted by unionists and, they say, would buy Trimble valuable time.  That's not how republicans see it. They dismiss the US notion as fanciful for the same, strict reason they apply to all new initiatives: such a mechanism is not mentioned in the Good Friday agreement, which republicans refer to with jesuitical rigour. The same goes for current talk of a possible plea by Blair next week for a "widening" of the IRA ceasefire: if it's not in the agreement, it's not going to happen.  Besides, they believe that Tony Blair will not hand down the damning verdict on the IRA that Trimble is looking for: it won't be a clean bill of health from the PM, but enough to keep Sinn Fein in government. Was the apology designed to nudge that along? Few would doubt it. The timing, at least, smacks of the choreographed sequence between the IRA, London and Dublin that has become so familiar.  But don't miss the big picture, say republicans. This apology was "a big deal" - a hard move to make for a self-styled national liberation movement, which believes its cause was always just. It was not that long ago that Sinn Fein leaders could barely express regret about bombings and killings. Now the IRA itself, in its own words, apologises for the grief, pain and hurt it has inflicted.  So which side is right: the unionists who dismiss this week's statement as a   self-serving trick or republicans who want respect for having acted honourably? Maybe a useful way to answer the question is with a thought experiment. The year is 2031, and it is early September. Suddenly the TV news hums with word of a statement from the ruling council of al-Qaida. It speaks of regret for the suffering it inflicted 30 years earlier, on September 11.  Would those words heal the families of those lost in New York and Washington? Probably not. But would it say something about al-Qaida's intent to kill again, especially if that organisation had been on a ceasefire for the previous six to eight years? Wouldn't the whole world feel relieved if al-Qaida ever said such a thing?  So maybe it would have been better if the IRA apology had extended to everyone, including the "combatants" of the RUC and army, still regarded as heroes by unionists. And maybe the IRA move was prompted by opportunism - but what Machiavellian purpose were republicans trying to pursue, exactly? Only to stay in government, as is their right under the agreement. Like it or not, all these alleged "ploys", whether the decommissioning of arms or this week's apology, have been to one end: to keep the peace process afloat, now that republicans have decided that the process is in its own strategic interest.  Republicanism is on a journey, slow and incomplete, away from its paramilitary past to a political future. It is not neat or perfect, but it looks more real with each passing month. Not to see it requires a closed heart, to be sure, but also a pair of closed eyes. In peace processes, as in life, sometimes you have to know how to say yes.