The President, Mrs McAleese, was not among the small crowd on Dublin's quays to watch the spectacle but it would have been a proud moment for her if she had been.
Only two years after being elected on a platform of bridge-building between communities, she would have seen the Liffey's new pedestrian crossing point lowered into place yesterday, bringing two of the State's most mutually distrustful peoples - Dublin's north siders and south siders - a little closer.
And the symbolism of the Millennium Bridge does not end there. Designed by Dublin-based but Northern architects, built in Carlow, and incorporating leaning rails cast in London and polished in west Belfast, this is a bridge whose time has come.
Yesterday, however, it was just a relief that it was the right size. During the tense moments when the 20 tonnes of steel were hoisted over the river, you could hear the ghost of the millennium clock ticking downstream, where that project sank without trace (apart from a nickname). It would have been no surprise to discover that the quays had contracted overnight and the new bridge was three inches short.
But there were no such problems. The 41-metre structure was lifted clear of its outsize truck just before 9 a.m. and, with a few final taps from a sledge-hammer, was snugly in place by 9.25 a.m. Watching from the balcony of a Temple Bar hotel, architect Mr James Howley - who admitted he had been "shaking with nerves" earlier - took his first deep breath of the morning.
Much work remains to be done before the bridge opens around the new year, including the completion of piazzas on either side which will make it an easier place to linger than the Ha'penny Bridge. The latter, nearly 200 years old, looked a little forlorn yesterday but its new neighbour was appropriately respectful.
"It's a superbly polite bridge," said Prof Sean De Courcy, an expert on the Liffey's bridges, who was also looking on from the balcony. He said the new bridge was both modern and in sympathy with the much-loved older one, adding that the latter was not always so popular.
Earlier this century, it was covered in garish advertisements and some of Dublin's leading lights led a campaign to get rid of "this eyesore".
Edwin Luytens proposed a bridge which would have incorporated an art gallery - housing the Hugh Lane collection - at either end. Mercifully, it was never built. "It wouldn't have been kind to the river," said Prof De Courcy. The Ha'penny Bridge divested itself of the hoardings and went on to become the postcard icon it is today.
But the sense of history lingered for Mr Howley who, with his partner, Mr Sean Harrington, won the new bridge competition in the face of 152 entries.
He said the Liffey bridges were like "stitches" holding the fabric of the city together. "I just hope people will like it. That's the crucial thing."
