NICOLA Sturgeon is discovering just how difficult it can be to get the British parliament to take you seriously.

Her bid to stage an independence referendum in the aftermath of the Brexit vote looks set to be stymied at every turn by Theresa May. The dispute between Westminster and Holyrood is the latest sign that the United Kingdom might be fracturing, but it is also a sign of the progress we have made that disputes nowadays are conducted through a war of words rather than through war itself. 

The death of Martin McGuinness has exhumed memories of a time not so long ago when a nationalist cause pressed its case with bullets and bombs.

The man who went from paramilitary to parliamentarian remained a divisive figure until his death, and even beyond it. Mr McGuinness was a hero to republicans, despised by the families of IRA victims, but widely, if grudgingly, respected for his pivotal role in the peace process.

Without his influence people would not have been tortured and killed, but had he not used his power to end the armed conflict then Northern Ireland and the mainland might not enjoy the relative peace we see today. 

A lot of the debate around how he should be remembered has brought old enmities to the fore and left many to conclude that no amount of peacemaking can atone for his role in murder and terror. Forgiveness is a very personal matter and there are those, Lord Norman Tebbit among them, determined to hang on to bitter feelings towards Mr McGuinness until their own dying day. This is an understandable reaction but raking over historic hatreds too often stokes up a new conflict.

There are many lessons to be drawn from the life of a man who epitomised the seismic change Northern Ireland has felt in recent years. Among them is the potential consequences for governments that fail to negotiate and sometimes share power with people who are becoming radicalised by feelings of discrimination. 

Like him or loathe him the former IRA chief of staff ultimately helped to draw up a blueprint for how embittered factions within the union can settle their differences in a democratic fashion. The notion of Scotland engaging today in armed conflict with England sounds ludicrous, and the power-sharing deal in Ireland helped reinforce the strength of Britain's democracy and the power of diplomacy.  

Above all, the life of Martin McGuinness showed that peace, no matter what the cost in terms of gut-wrenching compromise, is always worth the price.