North of the Border, there is a sense of déjà vu as the Republic's political classes flinch from the evidence that Sinn Féin has begun to dig in over a wide area in local government.
There is sympathy for the South in some quarters, derision in others. But the Northern political classes as constituted prior to the arrival of Sinn Féin have had a lengthy acclimatisation, predating the ceasefires. Coming to terms with the unpalatable has taken 10 good years. Some have yet to absorb it fully.
There are nationalists as well as unionists who will never see "the Shinners/the Provos/the Provies" as anything but killers and gangsters, even though they think the peace process largely successful.
There are more who will always feel distaste for the Adams/McGuinness habit of pontificating on the need to let go of the past, while insisting on inquiries into every alleged crime for 35 years by soldiers and police. Accepting the IRA's frontmen as practitioners of electoral politics has been hard. Taking lectures from them on justice and ethical conduct is harder.
Yet even the DUP, though it continues to demand republican disbandment, is now coming to terms with the transition from war to peace. More than that, in the midst of its own transition from red hot anti-Catholic Paisleyism, it has learned from republicans how to manage its grassroots. Armed robberies, assorted black marketeering, and the beatings and maimings suspended in the run-up to the elections now preoccupy the peacetime IRA.
The republican leadership clearly believes its supporters are not ready for disbandment: it has chosen the slowest and most gradual run-down of activity, with occasional, even seasonal, variations. Not for the first time, the election campaign coincided with an absence of reports from republican strongholds of youths found shot through knees and ankles or bludgeoned round the head.
Similarly, the DUP's rank and file is slow to give up the habit of revering the aged Ian Paisley, who appeared in full cry recently outside the Presbyterian General Assembly to complain about the incoming moderator's invitation to Archbishop Seán Brady.
The protest was complete with denunciation of "Mr Brady" as man of sin and placards urging delegates to "Touch not the unclean thing", assuredly Ian Paisley's own idea, not directed by Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds. But the group in charge of DUP strategy knows well that the market for scaremongering and straight anti-Catholicism is still strong.
They have a high degree of tolerance of it themselves. They also know the Doc's assurance that he will not have terrorists in government helps keep the voters happy, and distracted. Meanwhile, Robinson, Dodds and even newly-elected MEP Jim Allister in mid-rant leave disbandment and disarmament carefully undefined, as David Trimble before them did for so long.
In the South, the twists and turns in Government's dealing with republicans and with Northern nationalism generally have delayed the clarification of establishment attitudes to Sinn Féin. The guiding theory has been to keep the North at arms length as far as possible. Underpin the Belfast Agreement with a simultaneous referendum in the South by all means, promise North-South co-operation and commitment to civil liberties, but let them'ns and their propensity for quarrelsomeness stay well clear of our State.
Good enough to be in Stormont but not in the Oireachtas? The most lucid the Taoiseach became on that point was his differentiation between sovereign government in the Republic and mere devolved administration in Belfast. Couldn't have Shinners still organically linked to the IRA in a sovereign government with an army at its disposal; fair enough in charge of Stormont departments.
That followed repeated reassurance to Tony Blair and David Trimble that Sinn Féin needed only this, that and the other before the IRA called it quits, that republicans were on the move.
Then Bertie spotted that the Sinn Féin move was into his patch. The more abrasive approach of Michael McDowell over recent months finds an echo in ordinarily detached political correspondents.
It was easy to be complacent about the under-whelming group in the Dáil led by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, but downright unnerving when suddenly, as it seemed, the Shinners took votes from under Fianna Fáil's nose.
Southern Sinn Féin is different from its Northern manifestation in several ways, its republican content even more fluid: it poses similar challenges.
The election results should have clarified something for the Southern political class in general, as they have for Sinn Féin - which knows now, if it didn't before, that it needn't heed demands of it to continue its progress.
As the North has learned, the republican electoral rise will not be halted by rhetoric, no matter how scourging. McDowell said evil bastards, but the voters said yes, yes, yes.