UNIONIST politicians, prompted by a spirit of bonhomie, joined Sinn Fein representatives in the singing of Irish folk songs at the weekend, thus temporarily waiving their demand for no physical contact with Martin McGuinness and his team while in South Africa.
The Irish visitors serenaded their South African hosts at a pub in a conference centre near the remote fishing village of Arniston in Western Cape.
Their hosts, who included Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa, the two men who played a leading role in negotiating the settlement which ended decades of conflict in South Africa, reciprocated with the singing of local folk songs.
The thaw in the unionist refusal to interact with Sinn Fein occurred on Saturday night, reportedly when unidentified unionist politicians left their bar for one occupied by Sinn Fein representatives. By yesterday, with the resumption of formal proceedings, segregation was once more the order of the day with separate discussions with South African delegates for unionists.
The conference was called to provide an opportunity for the South African participants to relay their experiences in the process which led, after many tense moments, to a mutually agreed settlement and jointly approved inclusive constitution.
The South Africans insisted their role was not to mediate in the Irish dispute but merely to provide a perspective on settlement negotiations which their visitors might find helpful. But there was little doubt yesterday they were delighted by the spontaneous display of Irish solidarity on Saturday.
Earlier, President Nelson Mandela paid a surprise visit to the conference and spent about an hour "sharing his thoughts" on settlement negotiations and the challenges they pose for politicians. But his presence at Arniston reportedly failed to breach the segregation arrangements insisted on by the unionists. That was to come later in a more informal setting.
Mr Mandela, who once provoked a furore in Britain when Lady Thatcher was prime minister by mooting direct talks with the IRA, initiated the negotiations which led to a settlement in South Africa when he was still a prisoner. His meeting with President P.W. Botha took place almost two years before his release in February 1990.
According to a highranking South African participant at the Arniston conference, one of the central points which they sought to convey to the visitors was the importance to South Africa's negotiations of the agreement on how to proceed between the two biggest parties, an agreement which, if applied in Northern Ireland, would by implication place a heavy responsibility on the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP.
In South Africa, the agreement between the National Party and the African National Congress on the need for negotiations and how to conduct them provided the anvil on which the settlement was eventually hammered out.