Another milestone chapter in the history of the peace process was concluded yesterday when the North/South Ministerial Council, a key element of the Belfast Agreement, held its inaugural meeting and initiated a work programme in Armagh. It was noteworthy that the entire Cabinet of the Republic and the newly-elected Northern Ireland Executive were present on such a symbolic occasion. In other, more rancorous, times the sight of 20 state cars ferrying the Republic's cabinet to the Palace Demense in Armagh might have led to mass street protests. But the absence of any organised protest from unionists outside the meeting yesterday - and the relatively muted response from the two DUP ministers during their press conference at Markethill - underline the substantial progress being made in normalising politics on this island.
An all-Ireland Council has been mooted, unsuccessfully, twice before this century: under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, which set up the Northern Ireland State and which partitioned Ireland; and then as a last-minute proposal to strengthen the position of nationalists under the short-lived Sunningdale Agreement which came into effect for five months in 1974.
Twenty-five years later, on the turn of the century when the troubles in Northern Ireland have thwarted normal politics in the North and dominated the political agenda in the Dail, the North/South Ministerial Council has come into being. Even with its modest beginnings, it merits the ceremony, rich in symbolism, it was accorded in the ecclesiastical city of Armagh yesterday. Over time, it can help bring forward tangible economic advances for all the people of Ireland, North and South.
It is a measure of progress in inter-community relations that the First Minister, Mr David Trimble. was confident enough to allow nationalists to have their day yesterday. Mr Trimble was careful to point out that the new Council would be answerable to both the Dail and the Assembly but he was, nonetheless, gracious in his acceptance that it has great potential to work for the benefit of all the people of Ireland based on "mutual recognition and respect".
For his part, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, took a more maximalist view. He stressed that he could envisage no area of policy which could not benefit from the new structures. "For too long conflict and political division led us to turn our backs on one another rather than to deal face to face", he said.
What was most striking yesterday was the co-operative and cordial approach adopted by all sides in Armagh. It was a propitious beginning. But, as Mr Martin McGuinness declared his excitement with yesterday's "joyous occasion" all sides will be mindful that the future of the new structures will hinge on an act of decommissioning by the IRA.
Yesterday's events in Armagh will be mirrored in London on Friday, when the inaugural meeting of the British-Irish Council is scheduled. The relationships between all the people of these islands - North/South and East/West - are deepening and widening in a way most would have thought barely imaginable a short time ago.