The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, forced a late result at Hillsborough yesterday afternoon. And they flew home last night with good grounds for believing they can win the game when the second leg is played on April 13th.
That, of course, was not a view held uniformly across the board here. Sinn Fein sources insisted the endeavour of the two leaders had but one purpose - to mask the fact that no agreement had been reached.
Mr Nigel Dodds of the DUP echoed the sentiment, branding the agreement between Mr Ahern and Mr Blair "an illusion" conjured up by the masters of spin to pluck the appearance of success from the reality of failure. His party leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, was also characteristically robust, deriding the proposals to save the Belfast Agreement as "an April Fool's Day Charter."
It was true, as it happened, that the day had brought convincing new evidence of the dazzling power of spin - not to mention, more crucially, a fresh reminder of the devilishly clever and sophisticated nature of Anglo-Irish diplomacy and of those who give it its words and expression.
However, many close and serious observers of the peace process agreed last night that Mr Blair and Mr Ahern and their advisers had done much more than turn a neat presentational trick.
The spin doctors were entitled to feel pleased with their handiwork. After the high hopes of the late night and early morning, we were summoned back to Hillsborough in full expectation of deadlock and that proved to be the case.
However, as soon as Mr Blair began to speak, it became clear that this was no dull, dead adjournment. He had promised not to rest until agreement was found and he had plainly been true to his word. Mr Blair reportedly didn't go to bed at all, talking endlessly to the party leaders, working his way through Mr David Trimble's entire Assembly party, taking time out at around 3.40 a.m. yesterday for his third conversation of the night with President Clinton - not, incidentally, to talk about the seizure of three American soldiers but about Northern Ireland.
And yet, for all the engagement, cajoling and persuading, the gulf between the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein could not be bridged. Even as suggestions filtered through of tensions and divisions within the Sinn Fein camp, Mr Blair's spokesman talked-up the prospects for a breakthrough. It had always seemed clear, as Mr Albert Reynolds later observed, that the two leaders would not have returned on Wednesday night unless pretty certain there was a result to be had. And such was the general desire for progress - augmented by sturdy belief in the Good Friday precedent - that few were inclined to doubt the official line.
However, soon after breakfast, and a final round of discussions with the party leaders, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair were facing the prospect of defeat. But they had not come with such an outcome in mind. And if they could not quite bend the local parties to their will, they clearly resolved they would not be bound by the circular arguments which for close on a year had thwarted the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
If the parties could not bring themselves to an agreement, they clearly could not prevent the leaders of two governments reaching agreement between themselves.
The result was a joint declaration by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern defining their view as to the proper and necessary way to proceed, an invitation to the parties in double-quick time to accept it, and a clear indication of the consequences should they fail to do so. And the arrival at that point of Anglo-Irish definition of objectives and requirements may have immeasurably improved the prospects for the agreement's survival and success. For, as and from yesterday afternoon, London and Dublin can no longer be characterised as holding the line between the conflicting interpretations and requirements of the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein. And Sinn Fein can no longer claim that the advancement of the agreement is being prevented by the insistence that they first meet the demands of Mr Trimble.
It is Mr Blair and Mr Ahern who are in effect demanding that the parties reconvene to nominate ministers in accordance with the d'Hondt procedure. Within a month of that, as reported in The Irish Times yesterday, the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries will be required to put some arms "beyond use" - this in conjunction with a collective act of reconciliation, which will see simultaneous moves by the British government on normalisation and demilitarisation.
This action, to be conducted on a "voluntary" basis, will be verified by the International Commission on Decommissioning. In addition to the arrangements for military material, there will be ceremonies of remembrance of all victims of violence.
At around the time of this act of reconciliation, powers will be devolved to the Assembly, and the North-South ministerial council, North-South implementation bodies, the British-Irish council and the Inter-governmental conference would come into being.
Mr Blair and Mr Ahern yesterday acknowledged that one or other of the parties might refuse to meet their demand. They offered the assurance that "the successful implementation of the agreement will be achieved if these steps are taken within the proposed timescales." However, they ended with the discreet warning: "If they are not taken, the nominations mentioned above (for executive posts) will fall to be confirmed by the Assembly."
In other words, in the event of non-compliance, a vote of the Assembly would be required to give the go-ahead to the executive's assumption of office, so providing unionists with an opportunity to seek Sinn Fein's exclusion.
Mr Trimble was not yesterday speaking the language of exclusion. While entering what sounded like a caveat or two, he gave every appearance of accepting the proposed deal, hailing the opportunity it presented to resolve the outstanding problems and move the situation forward. He looked confident enough, too, despite ongoing worries that the deal - on specifics falling far short of previous unionist demands - could leave him vulnerable.
Mr Dodds was quick to articulate the obvious critique: that the nomination of ministers prior to decommissioning was a breach of his previous undertakings, that putting "some arms . . . beyond use" did not necessarily amount to an act of destruction and that the Blair/Ahern plan does not define any timetable for an ongoing programme of decommissioning ending in total disarmament by May 2000. Gone too, from yesterday's final draft, was the previous "copper-fastening" assurance that the SDLP would support Sinn Fein's exclusion from office in the event of failure to deliver.
Unionist politicians pride themselves on saying what they mean and meaning what they say. And some UUP Assembly members may feel uncomfortable at the prospect of reconciling yesterday's proposals with their past insistence on a "credible and substantial" start to decommissioning as the "beginning of a process" leading to total disarmament by May 2000.
Mr Trimble will be nervously awaiting the second and third reflections of leading party critics such as Mr William Ross and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson. However, the indications last night were that only one Assembly member appeared initially nervous, the rest content that the nomination of ministers was not tantamount to the creation of a shadow executive; that Mr Trimble had preserved intact his demand for an act of decommissioning prior to the transfer of powers; and that the acceptance of "an obligation" to decommission "within the timescale envisaged in the agreement" by Sinn Fein and the republican movement would represent the triumph of his interpretation of the agreement's provisions and requirements.
Acceptance of that obligation, to be policed by the international commission, would indeed represent a seismic shift in the declared republican position. And Mr Adams was absolutely insistent again yesterday that Sinn Fein "cannot deliver the unionist demand for IRA weapons".
Officials yesterday denied that the Ahern/Blair blueprint had triggered "the mother of all rows" between the Taoiseach and Sinn Fein on Wednesday afternoon. But yesterday's developments laid bare the faultline in what was once routinely called "the nationalist consensus". It is, it seems, no more. Mr Ahern has calculated that Sinn Fein has nowhere else to go. And he has told it as much.