The Impartial Reporter has always gone on sale on a Thursday in my lifetime.

So that means I’ve only ever read or seen a single copy that was dated February 29. That was 28 years ago, back in 1996, before we’d any of the digital versions we have nowadays.

And after today February 29, 2024, it’ll be another 28 years until the next one leaps out at us from shop shelves or internet screens.

Thursday, February 29, 2052, is a very long wait for a column on leap years so I’d best try to make this a half-decent one.

One thing is for sure. Where we were in 1996 as a society is very different to where we are in 2024 and where we are likely to be in 2052. That’s if we make it there, with the amount of war that’s happening in the world right now, getting worse by the year.

Back in 1996, there was a different mood music in the world. Maybe the theme song of the times was that classic tune by D-Ream – ‘Things can only get better.’

We were living in a time that seemed like the end of history. Everybody wanted to make peace and become friends, even the Russians and Americans. The Berlin Wall was gone and foundations were laid for a more peaceful, less-nuclear future.

Meanwhile, farther south, apartheid had ended in South Africa. That once-divided nation softened into a rainbow of cultures. Freed from prison, Nelson Mandela became the smiling face of national reconciliation, culminating in the raising of the Rugby World Cup in 1995.

Northern Ireland too stuttered towards a new state of peace. On Wednesday, February 28, 1996, the British and Irish Prime Ministers, John Major and John Bruton, set a date for the start of all-party peace talks. That was to happen three months later on June 10.

Looking back now, so much of that seems mad. So much hand-wringing and refusal to shake hands or sit at the same tables. So many refusals to accept changed realities, changing demographics and the fact that the system as it was just wasn’t working.

Something had to be done. Some great leap of faith had to be taken. And interestingly, 28 years on from the last leap year on an Impartial day, we’re in a similar place.

There have been huge leaps of faith in recent weeks, although it’s clear that everybody’s going onto the pitch with a different game plan. Sinn Féin have said that a United Ireland is within touching distance. The DUP have been saying the opposite.

That DUP stance is also backed up by a lot of the language coming out of Westminster. Britain’s political class has no real interest in talking about a United Ireland. But they’d probably have just as little interest in stopping conversations about one.

And those conversations are happening on a whole different level to 1996. Back then, Unionists wouldn’t even have shaken Michelle O’Neill’s hand on the way out of the toilet. These days they’re working together on a daily basis.

A lot changes in 28 years. It will be interesting to see where we are at in 2052. Presumably, a border poll will have happened by then. An online one, with two-factor verification. Tech is getting so advanced we don’t need to go out the door to vote, work or purchase stuff.

But the more extreme that gets, we might see a leap of another kind. As people tire of consumerism, they might drift back towards a stronger sense of community.

Big tech wants us all living in our own little bubbles, not thinking of others. I see that all the time in London – somebody going down the street tangled up in headphones, staring at a screen, as if they’re the only one alive in the world. Sometimes too, it comes with walking along, blowing giant vape clouds around themselves, oblivious to cars, bikes or people.

In that state, they’re exactly where big capital wants them to be. The last thing capitalism wants is community because when people unite as communities, they create conditions in which everyone looks out for one another.

Theoretically, that should be the job of governments too. So if there is to be a new agreed Ireland at some point in the future, it should be a place centred on communities. Right now, the present Republic of Ireland is very definitely not such a place.

Recently I learned that by 2030, 70 per cent of Ireland’s electricity supply might be going to feed data centres. And the people who profit from such centres are generally not the communities in which they are based. Often it’s foreign investors with as little emotional attachment to Irish interests as they might have to Singapore, Monaco or The Cayman Islands.

An Ireland that’s just a slave to such systems isn’t the one we want to see by the time 2052 comes around if we’re all here to see it. And that’s not a criticism of commerce or capitalism. It’s not saying that Ireland shouldn’t be a place that rewards hard work and enterprise.

Because of where it is on the map, because of the population size, Ireland’s always going to face economic struggles and cycles of boom 'n’ bust. That’s partly why so many people leave. But farming out our resources to outside interests isn’t the only road to success.

If we’re to see a new Ireland that cherishes all its communities equally by the time the Impartial goes on sale on February 29, 2052, it’s going to require another kind of leap. That’s a leap back to putting the interests of communities before corporations.

So it’s good to see the work that’s being done locally in terms of bringing communities together to think about what a new Ireland might look like. I hope all sides take part in such conversations because there are hard questions that need to be asked and by all sides.

What can we do to get back some of the hope we had across the world in 1996 and ensure that all the hope leads to something more sustainable this time around?