The recent news from Northern Ireland has been upsetting and worrying. The rhetoric from Gordon Brown, who has now stated repeatedly that this “won’t derail the peace process”, revives a phrase that many had hoped to hear the back of. Just when does a peace process become peace itself, and, once that point is reached, can it turn back again? It’s a grey area.

One area that most certainly wasn’t grey was Belfast, when I visited almost a year ago in order to interview numerous business people, HR practitioners and politicians to understand just how far Northern Ireland had come since the peace process had got under way. New offices, shopping districts, bars and restaurants were sprinkled like confetti amid the handsome old buildings of the city centre. All the people I spoke to were resolute about one thing – while there was still a way to go to heal the wounds, the era of widespread sectarian violence was over and this was now a time of irreversible peace.

The PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland), born from the ashes of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was a police force committed – by legislation as well as public will – to reflect the religious balance of the community though recruitment and promotion. Put simply, it is now a police force that recruits Catholics (and lots of them) not simply Protestants.

Other industries, such as the breweries and shipyards - once Catholic and Protestant heartlands respectively - are no longer the force they were. In their place new industries in media, IT, finance and a flourishing retail sector have all developed further with the support of unique anti-discrimination legislation and a collective wish throughout the province to put the past behind it.

That political violence has reared its ugly head once more in such a bloody way is deeply upsetting. But this should not be enough to derail a process that, some would argue, has already reached its destination.