It's comforting at times like these to realise that there is a world outside Neverneverland. Last week I felt the urge to flee the scene darkened with the threat of yet another encounter between Trimble's spacemen and Donaldson's flat-earthers for the unionists' 10th sham fight or percentage joust between the 55 percentage yes-men versus the 45 percentage no-men.
Some say it is really the 11th time the muddle-headed delegates, alias the unionist grassroots, were summoned from the shadows of the dreary steeples west of the Bann to shout, kick, scratch and yell behind closed doors, emerging each time more battered and beaten than the last time.
Anyway, it was time to flee south in response to a timely invite from old friend and colleague, Jim Eadie, hon secretary of the NUJ at Liberty Hall, to join 50 retired journalists from north and south for a visit to President Mary McAleese at Aras an Uachtaran.
Many others are fleeing – the latest figures put it at 3,000,000 a year – crossing what used to be a border and now there's a 40-minute air service to Dublin and on to Cork or Galway.
The day we travelled by car saw the opening of the great new motorway eliminating the bottlenecks of Drogheda and Balbriggan – well worth the toll at the oddly-named Plaza where a girl collected one-and-a-half euros in coins to speed us on our way over the giant bridge spanning the site of the Battle of the Boyne.
The site is marked by a lofty edifice like a giant wishbone stretching into the sky.
Below us was the spot where King Billy crossed the river, sending the cowardly King James racing away to Dublin – labelled by the Irish as 'Seamus the Blane', unmentionable in a respectable newspaper – to be told by a countess there 'Sire, you won the race.'
Anyway, it was here that our fate was sealed for 300 years beneath the heels of the sons of William until it all went wrong and the underdogs said 'enough is enough'!
All water under the bridge now while we wait for the north's political late learners to catch up with the 21st century.
With these thoughts in mind, it was a fast ride into Dublin with miles of giant excavations and monster machines tunnelling underground from the airport to the docks and the prospect of great new communications ahead.
All this happening while the poor old Land-of-No and its beknighted tribesmen keep marching steadily nowhere.
The sun was shining in a blue sky when we arrived at Aras an Uachtaran and once again I trod those magnificent Donegal carpets from the entrance hall to the lovely reception room.
The president – tall, slim and charming as ever – circled the throng of newsmen and women, shaking hands and having great craic and many a laugh with us all.
I reminded her that she was meeting no ordinary visitors but the men and women who have written the history of our past few turbulent decades now filed away for the academic historians of the future to pore over in their search for the truth in the news.
It was a great occasion and we would not have missed it for anything.
I nearly forgot, out in the greensward of the garden were two memorial trees – both flourishing – one planted by old Queen Victoria and the other by Pope John Paul II on his historic appearance before the multitude in Phoenix Park.
It was too soon to go back to 'all that' up north, so it was off down the N11 to the 'sunny south-east' and three days relaxation in the fabulous Kelly's Resort Hotel, Rosslare.
More huge road works on the way for miles – must be costing millions – and, as Wexford hove in sight, young sellers of strawberries and new potatoes lined the road on either side.
No old shacks on the farms anymore but bright coloured mansions, biscuit coloured, white and pink – not like the old Ireland we knew, more like the Mediterranean.
The Kellys (unfortunately no relation!) have been in the hotel business since 1840 and what a superb job they have made of it.
Catering for young and old, every whim taken on board.
We never felt so comfortable and at home... looking out on the palm trees in the gardens and the rope walk along the sand dunes lining the six miles of golden beach and another nearby made famous a few years back by the filming of the Normandy landings in the box office sensation Saving Private Ryan.
Tearing ourselves away from all that was painful... and in the three days we were there nobody mentioned the wee north.
On the television in our rooms, UTV was missing and only the Welsh service of the BBC was available.
Sorry to disillusion that frightened old Ballymena councillor who, in all seriousness, warned that the RIR are needed in the event of an invasion by the Irish army.
Nobody mentioned this bad joke and the only sign of anything remotely connected with our ongoing controversies was a slogan on a hillside by the road. 'Free the Colombian Three' it read.
So, when we arrived back refreshed, none of the usual unionist pundits seemed anxious to tell us whether the UUP had shot itself in the foot or the head!
My solution for the walking wounded of unionism is a long holiday in the sunny south-east, paid for by Tony Blair: take the whole unionist 'grassroots' with you.
Might prove worthwhile therapy for their hang-ups. Better and less costly than all those trips to Washington.
Desperate diseases, they say, need desperate remedies.
