For much of yesterday Bertie Ahern must have suspected his shadow had a beard and glasses. It was the Taoiseach's day in Belfast, but it was Gerry Adams's and Sinn Fein's gig. If there's a publicity opportunity to milk, Sinn Fein ensures an overflowing bucket. "And why shouldn't we?" asked one Sinn Fein official. "After all it was us who invited Bertie to west Belfast."
First Belfast gets Ireland's head of State, with the visit on Friday of the President, Mrs McAleese. The picture that made the papers was the Sinn Fein president shaking her hand. Yesterday it was the Taoiseach's turn to share the media glare.
In the morning Mr Adams greeted Mr Ahern at the Springvale campus site in west Belfast. Then the two met again at Stormont. Later, Mr Adams welcomed Mr Ahern to the Culturlann centre on the Falls Road. An hour later he pulled the same trick a mile or so up the road at the Andersonstown Leisure Centre.
Adults and children cheered, tricolours were waved. This was another historic moment: the first time a serving Taoiseach had set foot in west Belfast, according to Gerry Adams.
The RUC officers providing security kept whatever thoughts they had to themselves. One senior officer, though, engaged in conversation with a man who was moved by the significance of the occasion.
"But wasn't Sean Lemass here in the mid-60s?" asked the officer. That didn't impress the west Belfast nationalist. Lemass visited Stormont, not west Belfast. "Times have changed," he told the officer. "When Sean Lemass was here we were on our knees. We are not on our knees now, and we are not going back on our knees for anyone."
Mr Ahern, as well as mending a broken bridge with the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, had to be conscious of other sensitivities. The SDLP was annoyed that Sinn Fein was getting too much publicity from Bertie Ahern's visit, and the Taoiseach made efforts to ensure parity of esteem among the competing nationalist families.
At least the SDLP politicos had most of the show to themselves for one function - the visit of Mr Ahern to Belfast City Hall, where he was greeted by the party's Lord Mayor, Mr Alban Maginness.
And yes, it was yet another historic occasion, the first time in the 75-year history of the Irish State that a Taoiseach had set foot in the unionist monolith of City Hall.
Moreover, Belfast's first nationalist Lord Mayor was welcoming him. But where were the journalists and camera crews? One SDLP official brooded on the relative scarcity of reporters compared with the large press pack which arrived earlier for the Adams-Ahern photocall at Springvale. "This is much more historic, the reporters should be here in City Hall."
The oddest feature of yesterday was the absence of unionist protesters. At City Hall, where the Ulster Covenant was signed in blood, one would have anticipated at least a token demo.
At Castle Buildings, Stormont, it was literally a case of hawks and doves. On the Stormont grounds a kestrel regularly hovers over proceedings. Yesterday, the bird of prey had a serious competitor in a lovely, white dove, which appears intent on making its home at the entrance to Castle Buildings.
Could this be a very obvious augury of the peacemakers taking precedence over the warmongers? It'll take months to answer that question. But at least two of the central players, Mr Ahern and Mr Trimble, had a useful meeting yesterday, agreeing to "put behind them" the row over the recent remarks about North-South bodies by Mr David Andrews.
Another historic day, another small step in the name of progress.
