Most expectations have been that the road to reconciliation will be at least as long and winding as the path to peacem says Fionnuala O Connor.
On the other hand, there have always been prophets to promise that practicalities can melt inherited division. But some milestones have arrived surprisingly soon, all the same.
With the lions of Paisleyism and republicanism lying down together in Stormont, "bizarre" has been overused already to describe the accompanying sights. As when Aer Lingus invades the North, and Ian Paisley lends his trademark massive grin to the occasion. When British Airways stopped flying out of Belfast, some unionists took it as harbinger of withdrawal and a cruel snub to outlying kith and kin. This week the Irish national airline restarted flights to Heathrow - at the cost of jobs in the Republic.
To complete the sense of progress hard won and traditional loyalties adjusted, new Northern staff will be on lower wages than those in the South. No doubt the workers took what consolation they could from the sight of an embarrassed Aer Lingus chief executive, in front of the beaming Paisley, clutching a model airplane which cruelly shed an engine for delighted photographers.
Cruise ships disgorging scores of one-day trippers in Belfast this summer are another sign of the times. Not enough to anchor a new market, though.
Now that the bad past has begun to recede at a steady pace, the push is on to pitch in earnest for a tourism upsurge. This takes ingenuity. Even some of her most loyal children will occasionally admit that the city is on the drab side: the less dutiful see a big town with a chip on its shoulder, a would-be capital unconfident of city status and bereft of a shared heritage.
Talking the place up requires a degree of artfulness, the suggestion of a common consciousness in the making, if not yet established.
The unionist-dominated city council was itself a byword for discord in the recent past. Humming "My Kind of Town" as council anthem not long ago would have offended more than half the population. The council's kind of town was not inclusive. Now its tourism unit produces leaflets and posters cheering "our Belfast" as well as "My Belfast" with only a hint or two of stagefright. A "My Belfast" booklet is a sharply-produced collection of short essays, some by present residents, although two-thirds are the celebrated who left long ago or came to the city to work or study.
A readable bunch, and undoubtedly a safer line-up than a roster made up entirely of current inhabitants with controversial records. Republican west Belfast does not feature, beyond a couple of glancing references. There is at least one other sub-text in the clear desire to rehabilitate north Belfast - which many have avoided for decades. Actors Kenneth Branagh and Ciarán Hinds, poet Medbh McGuckian, pianist Barry Douglas and flautist Jimmy Galway highlight the natural beauty of Cavehill's woods and heights, under-used facilities like the Waterworks, views of Belfast Lough.
Barry McGuigan must have delighted and amazed the booklet's commissioners by remembering the civic welcome at "the delectable" City Hall to mark his 1985 world title. More contributors are lyrical about the setting, unsurprisingly, than about the built city.
The Queen's University district generally gets more than its share of praise in guidebooks and tourist publicity. So maybe it is entirely fair that the "My Belfast" castlist all but ignore Queen's neighbour, Botanic Gardens, source of free entertainment for town, gown and strollers of all persuasions for more than a century. Like Victorian Dublin and Cork, Victorian Belfast built municipal glories and the gardens contain two of them. One is a sight less preserved than the other - the only "tropical ravine" on the island and in the UK, badly in need of municipal funding. The much larger neighbouring Palm House with its lines of orderly flowers has been recently and expensively restored and endlessly photographed.
The ravine building is the Cinderella, though the most exotic corner of the city by far: beloved alike of nearby streets and of students, mostly idle, through the ages. Something about walking into a building that houses a steamy walkway round a patch of jungle has always magnetised romantics, and the hungover. Children stare longingly down into the tangle of greenery past the signs reading "Please do not throw coins into the pond," though the staff have for years confirmed that only fat red and gold fish lurk in the depths, no crocodiles.
But the framework is disintegrating, the crucial panes of the roof have separated, and the cold gets in. Rebuilding must be done in summer to maintain the steamy heat, but appeals and applications for Lottery funding are unlikely to raise enough money until summer 2009 at the earliest. Some ancient plants may be gone by then. The council might consider diverting some cash from consultancy fees, and publicity.