Of course the Republic should have got Ikea first. And we will get it, just as soon as the M50 is sorted out; in other words, never. But we are big enough to say that it's very nice that Ikea's 270th store is opening today in Norn Iron - otherwise known as the sterling zone.
They need something to be proud of, poor things. You can't spend your whole life washing your car.
And shopping does seem to have played a significant, if unacknowledged, part in the peace process.
Look at the way they demolished half of Derry to build that shopping centre and the next thing you know peace breaks out.
At heart we are all one nation under a mall with multi-storey parking.
It is rumoured that Bus Éireann is going to lay on a special service to take us to Ikea at last. Could the direction of the shopping traffic over the Border be about to change once again?
Once we smuggled Opal Fruits and three sets of underwear at a time. Now it's going to be flat-pack furniture and that old constant, diesel.
Still, it's difficult to get over the melancholy feeling that Ikea's arrival in Ireland comes, like the Led Zeppelin reunion, just that little bit too late.
It's the Barbra Streisand factor, isn't it?
Something that we all wanted in the '80s, and felt entitled to in the '90s, and now that it has actually arrived on these shores we are slightly nostalgic for the desires which raged within us decades ago.
God be with the days when we were excited by the prospect of a Habitat sofa.
It's like broadband; for a lot of people broadband hasn't arrived on these shores yet , and the bloom has certainly gone off it by now.
Let's face it, the interiors boom has stalled. When they split that log outside the new Belfast Ikea today, in some traditional Swedish ritual that marks the opening of every Ikea store, the joy will be unconfined, but will there be any real hope of the type of riot that broke out at the opening of the Ikea store in Edmonton, north London, way back in 2005?
Down here our apartments are full - of furniture, if not of people. The days when the southern Irish hit the Glasgow branch of Ikea like a whirlwind, ordering kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms for six properties at a time - I saw this with my own eyes - are over.
Even the individual shopper, with her neutral palette and her white sofa, is tiring.
We discovered long ago that leather cushions are downright chilly and glass-topped tables are impossible to keep clean.
This is not in any way to denigrate Ikea, which as far as I can establish has never stocked anything as useless as a leather cushion.
One of the most charming houses I know is decorated with Ikea products. It contains a steel standard lamp with a pleated chiffon lampshade in café au lait - so sexy.
I realise that one has to be female to find a pleated chiffon lampshade sexy. It is amazing what lunacy that second X chromosome leads you to, and retailers play female susceptibilities like a violin.
So of course we are going to be driven demented by the idea of the Ektorp three-seater sofa, £315 with removable washable covers which are guaranteed for 10 years. And Ikea provide you with extra loose covers if you want them.
Even Guineys had stopped doing over the counter loose covers, and the thought of someone being thoughtful enough to provide not only extra loose covers, but washable ones as well, is enough to stop my little spin-cycle heart.
Not everyone will be moved by the Billy bookcase, at £49 one of Ikea's biggest sellers. Or by the spice rack £2.99, which is called Rationell; names are one of Ikea's great strengths. But there will always be young people setting up house who don't want to start in a new home furnished with their mother's cast offs.
In many parts of Europe now the Ikea sofa has replaced the traditional engagement ring.
And there will always be women who dream of washable covers.
Ikea doesn't need to do that much market research when human nature is so constant - only our economies change.
Here is some advice from the older generation, otherwise known as the woman who owns Ikea's sexy pleated chiffon lampshade in café au lait: don't buy anything from Ikea except its sofas.
She has been embittered by the hand-to-hand fighting which ensued when she forgot to take a piece of her daughter's Victorian style single bed out of the warehouse in Glasgow and Ikea wouldn't budge an inch, or a centimetre, despite the fact that it provides free measuring tapes.
So we say to our separated brethren north of the Border - congratulations, but be careful.
There is more to life than beautiful, clever, disposable furniture and as soon as we work out what it is that is more important than beautiful, clever, disposable furniture we will be sure and let you know.