The symbolism of Alex Maskey's election as Belfast mayor has proved disquieting for unionists, writes Gerry Moriarty.
Portraits of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII looked down on the chamber of City Hall on Wednesday evening as Alex Maskey donned the chain of office as the first Sinn Féin lord mayor of Belfast. Now here was symbolic change. Vic and Ed may well be spinning in their vaults.
The SDLP's Alban Maginness broke almost 200 years of unionist domination in the running of the city when elected the first Catholic Belfast lord mayor five years ago. Most unionists could somehow tolerate Mr Maginness because he is the lawyerly type, even if somewhere down the road he looks forward to an agreed Ireland.
This was far more dramatic and disquieting for unionists and royalists. Here, after all, was a senior provisional republican anti-monarchist working-class bantamweight as Belfast's first citizen.
Mr Maskey is a scrapper in more ways than one. As a schoolboy he fought 75 bouts and lost four. He was the first Sinn Féiner into City Hall, elected in 1983. Now his is the largest party on the council, with 14 seats. In the early days some unionists were wont to blow whistles and spray perfume when within his orbit.
Remember that in the 1980s and early 1990s City Hall was a bear pit. On a few occasions some unionists threatened to get physical with Mr Maskey. But when faced with his shaven-headed, gimlet-eyed, squat, menacing figure, they wisely backed down.
His hard-man image and his Sinn Féin council trailblazing made Mr Maskey a hate figure for many unionists and loyalist paramilitaries.
He sustained a shotgun blast to the stomach when the UDA attacked him in 1983. Six years later, Alan Lundy, a father of five, was murdered by the UDA as he helped secure Mr Maskey's house. Security therefore must be a concern for Mr Maskey as he meets his mayoral engagements.
At least Belfast City Council is a calmer, safer place these days. It was significant that while unionists walked out of the chamber - the same unionists who could previously vote for representatives of the UVF and UDA for mayor and deputy mayor positions - they later returned to do business with Mr Maskey in the chair. But while he wants to reach out to unionists he knows he won't be welcome in many areas of the city.
Unionists emphasised that point on Wednesday by refusing the position for deputy lord mayor to which they were entitled. Time will tell whether that is a temporary boycott.
ALEX Maskey is 50 and is married to Liz, the first woman interned in Northern Ireland. They have two grown-up sons and a grandchild. He was twice interned in the early 1970s at the start of the Troubles. His Assembly seat in west Belfast is assured but the party has greater ambitions for him next year. After winning a council seat in south Belfast he is now confident of taking Sinn Féin's first Assembly seat in Belfast's leafy suburbs in next May's Assembly poll.
He appealed to unionists to judge him by his words and deeds rather than by a pre-set image of him. He took questions from the public on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback show on Thursday. Unionist callers asked could he spare an hour to appear at the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and would he condemn the IRA Shankill bombing.
They got hedge and fudge. He "regretted" the Shankill and all other killings but he could not be prevailed upon to issue the c-word. He spoke of inclusiveness but whether he will be at the cenotaph in November we were no wiser.
And then there will be issues such as meeting the police and British army, attending Somme commemorations, and chatting to British royal visitors. While the DUP was happy to meet the President, Mrs McAleese, in the Waterside in Derry, a senior Sinn Féin figure indicated that greeting Queen Elizabeth or any other of the Windsors would be too big a step for the people who put Sinn Féin in office - which is paramount for the party. All those factors will make it difficult for Belfast unionists to give Mr Maskey a fair wind, and that is without mentioning the sectarianism in the city. But he easily coped with such obloquy when he was Sinn Fein's lonely figure on the council.
While he is first citizen, his first priority is to extend Gerry Adams' great project of achieving republican political domination in Northern Ireland. Mr Maskey genuinely will try to be lord mayor for all of the people, but equally he is unlikely to do anything to upset that ambition.