After generations of bitterness and bad jokes, north-south relations were strengthened yesterday by a structure designed to bring the two communities in Dublin closer together.
Both traditions, northsiders and southsiders, joined in the chorus of approval which greeted the unveiling of Dublin Corporations's Millennium Bridge. The President, Mrs McAleese, would have been proud of it.
The Lord mayor of Dublin, Cllr Mary Freehill, seems to share the President's penchant for bridges. "They hold a special place in the heart of Dublin and Dubliners", she said, before becoming the first person to walk on the new crossing which links Eustace Street in Temple Bar to a planned walkway to the Jervis Street shopping centre.
She was followed by a couple of hundred pedestrians, many of whom praised the bridge's brass handrail, the slotted aluminium flooring, the fibre-optics lighting and the roominess of the walkway.
Ms Esther Stynes, from the National Rehabilitation Board, said that it had been a problem for her to get across the nearby Ha'penny Bridge in a wheelchair. "But the new one is accessible. Not just for wheelchairs, but for prams. There are no steps and it is twice as wide", she said.
The hunt is already on for a nickname for the stylish, if simple, structure. The Bouncy Bridge is appropriate, as the suspension allows it to move with the masses. The Aluminium Bridge may also win out, given the material it is fashioned from and the difficulty increasing numbers of people are having pronouncing minnellium.
The bridge over murky waters - all the shiny metal in the world can't disguise the fact that for some Dubliners the Liffey is just a watery rubbish bin - is being tested to the limits by the public. Yesterday saw the first wheelchair crossing, the first buggy, and then, less successfully, the first dog. A lovely mutt called Boy stood petrified in the middle of the bridge, refusing to move despite gentle coaxing from its owner.
Created by Howley Harrington Architects and Price and Myers Structural Engineers, the only design fault appears to be that the bridge isn't canine-friendly. All that aluminium is hard on the paws.
The timing couldn't be better commercially. Since the opening of several "south-side embassies" on the north side of the city - such as the super-pubs Pravda, Zanzibar and GUBU - normally less adventurous southsiders have taken to crossing the river in search of nocturnal entertainment.
The general view yesterday was that the new bridge can lead only to increased colonisation.
Mr Tony Gregory TD, a devout northsider, declared that the new structure was "not a patch on the Ha'penny bridge", but conceded that it would be good for north-south business relations. "I suppose it will allow more market traders to cross over to sell flowers on the affluent south side", he said.