On the Monday of a week that would see the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, and a major speech about race in America by Barack Obama, two mayors from Northern Ireland laid wreaths at the Irish monument on East Rodney French Boulevard in an extraordinary gesture of reconciliation. It was St. Patrick's Day, and the remembrance of Irish struggles for dignity and independence were ever present, but so, too, was a new message, one of working together and moving on.

"What has been accomplished in Northern Ireland is simply astounding," said Sean Toomey, president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, after Catholic mayor Paul Bradley of Buncrana in the Irish Republic and Drew Thompson, the Protestant mayor of Derry in Northern Ireland, laid their wreaths, buffeted by a chilly wind off the water.

The divisions between Protestants and Catholics, Unionists and Republicans, in Northern Ireland are so deep "people have died over what to call a city," noted an Irish friend. For predominantly Protestant unionists, it is "Londonderry." For Catholic nationalists, it's simply "Derry."

Even a year ago, the two mayors told the Friendly Sons a Unionist Protestant and a Catholic Republican could not have shared the same stage, broken bread, traveled together and even hoisted a pint together. Until recently, the divisive politics of Ireland brought political pain — even physical harm — to potential peacemakers.

"We have learned that 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind," said Pat Ramsey, former Derry mayor and current member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in a night of speeches punctuated by frequent standing ovations. "We owe a great debt of gratitude to Bill Clinton and George Mitchell," Mayor Bradley told me later. "It made a great impression, the world's only superpower taking a great interest in peace." A few days later, America paused to ponder the embattled legacy of another president, who began a pre-emptive war five years ago that has accidentally fanned the flames of ancient sectarian conflict in the oldest part of the world.

Mr. Bradley said he came from a mind-your-own-business family that had long refused to become involved in contentious politics of Northern Ireland. When the peace process began, the businessman realized it was time to step forward. "I found myself complaining a lot about the state of things" in Northern Ireland, he said. "One of my friends said I should run for council, and finally, I did."

Ironically, the violent turmoil in Northern Ireland known as "the Troubles" drew much of its inspiration from the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland were denied good jobs, banned from the police force and many government positions. As the British dealt with protests and unrest with live ammunition, the blood of innocents soon stained hands on both sides.

The aspirations of Ireland's second-class citizens devolved into a generation of often senseless violence. "Now people want to get on with their lives," an Irish friend told me. "Enough of this already."

"This has been extraordinary," one of the Friendly Sons told me, as we looked at the Protestant and Catholic mayors sitting side by side on the podium. Then he added, "You know, if Barack Obama applied to the Friendly Sons, he'd be accepted as a member. His mother is half Irish, you know." I don't know if that's true, but it speaks to the sense of shared destiny on both sides of the Atlantic.

A few days later, Sen. Obama himself addressed both the aspirations and the unfinished business of racial healing in America. In his speech, Sen. Obama evoked both his black and white heritage, as Frederick Douglass once had in our own city, to a nation that sees a man of mixed race only as a black man.

Reconciliation in Northern Ireland is still a work in progress, of course, with many difficult bumps in the road. Still, to meet the Irish who have chosen peace, and begun the process of compromise and reconciliation, is to find the inspiration to believe that we can overcome sectarian and racial divisions.

As a new chapter in Irish history begins, students at the University of Ulster take college classes in conflict resolution. In our city, in the presidential campaign, and in the Middle East, we know how difficult it can be to find common ground, yet our future depends upon it.

"Look to the Irish," said Police Chief Ron Teachman. As immigrants, they helped build America, he said. Now, they are working to heal their homeland. "You are the peacemakers. 'Molaim sibh.' We salute you."