‘We want grown-up politics.’   These words were spoken by a newly elected politician not in Malta (where they would immediately resonate) but in my country of birth, Ireland. 

They were spoken by Alliance Party member Patricia O’Lynn, the first female to be elected in the traditionalist homeland of Northern Ireland’s Ian Paisley.

Earlier in her career, O’Lynn had described her constituency politics as ‘stale, male, pale’. Her election represents a fundamental break with that tradition and reflects the broader changes underway.

The results of the recent election in Northern Ireland are historic at many levels. 

For the first time in history, a nationalist politician Michelle O’Neill will become the symbolic First Minister in a country and a parliament designed over 100 years ago to specifically ensure Unionist hegemony. That hegemony has been dying for some time and is now no more.   

Secondly, despite its triumph in becoming the dominant political party, Sinn Fėin’s declared priority objective of a United Ireland will not be realised any time soon as practical support for that outcome stalls or declines in both parts of the island.  The continuing re-assessment of what Ireland will look like in the immediate decades ahead moves on apace.

So too does the ever-complicated relationship between Ireland and Britain, made all the more difficult and tense by the negative agenda of Brexit (how silly now the arguments that Ireland should follow and exit the EU). 

The outlook for all but the most hard-line Unionists (allied to the ultra Brexiteers) has become bleaker, even more so with the utterly dishonest and unreliable leadership of Johnson and his followers. 

The historic 'two traditions' headline – either Green or Orange - has been replaced by something far more interesting, potentially productive and energising.  As we move on, this old and failed ‘dualism’ will no longer adequately serve the needs and wishes (and complexities) of Northern Irish society.  There is now a third way clearly in view.   

Looking back, one of the great experiences of my life has been to observe the emergence of a new (but still flawed) Ireland. 

We have left behind the old obscurantist and damaging ‘Catholic state for a Catholic people’ with all the misery it visited on the island, especially its women.

We have rejected the dogma that personal, private, or faith-based beliefs should determine public policy in matters of reproductive rights, medicine and education with all the attendant fictions and lies.

We have recognised that women form a key spinal cord in our society and have moved to address (but not eliminate) gender-based discrimination.  We have even elected two women presidents who proved to be agenda and era-defining.

We have left behind a monoculture that characterised ‘Irishness’ in narrow and limiting terms to embrace instead an interculturalism that has been overwhelmingly enriching for us as a people.  Being part of the European project (however flawed) has been pivotal in that process.

I have been energised and motivated by being able to imagine myself as Irish and European or even European and Irish.  I am even tempted to add ‘liberated’ by this.

And crucially, my generation (acknowledging our past) has brought significant but not complete peace to the island.  Last weekend’s election illustrated this vividly.  We continue to give the lie to those who claimed that change was impossible, that we would never get beyond embedded binaries and cultures.

We are increasingly in a place and position where we can imagine and move purposefully to create something better.  There is much work to be done – on inequality, environment, housing, education, women’s rights and, of course, climate change – the list is daunting but if we apply ourselves imaginatively and creatively to it, eminently doable.

At a time when so much internationally looks dark and foreboding, I take heart from the positive behaviour of my fellow travellers from all backgrounds in Northern Ireland last week.  They have proven that change is not only possible, but also inevitable.

Interviewed following her election, Patricia O’ Lynn commented: "We are here because we love Northern Ireland, we want to make it work, we are committed to staying here. Our families are here and the next generation’s here. I think people see that. They want a shared future".

This is not just an Irish story - I feel there is an important message for Malta here.