It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.

They are not royal. They just happen to have me as their aunt.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else - I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it hasturned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

Think what we would have missed if we had never ... used a mobile phone or surfed the Net -- or, to be honest, listened to other people talking about surfing the Net.