There must be a welcome. And there must be an effort to understand the unionist mindset in the period immediately ahead. In one form or another, the decommissioning of the IRA's weaponry has been on the political agenda for more than a decade. It has been a long time coming and, if truth is told, much diminished and devalued for that today
But the unambiguous nature of yesterday's announcement by General John de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning and the two clergymen who witnessed all of the decommissioning events in the past few days has the capacity to convince any reasonably-minded person that the arms of the IRA have been put beyond use for now.
It would be mealy-mouthed, in these circumstances, not to concede that history is in the making. The promised end of the IRA as an army is a momentous development for Irish democracy even if there is understandable scepticism and suspicion in some quarters as to why it is happening now. And it is welcome for its own sake even if the Democratic Unionist Party were never to sit down with Sinn Féin in any political forum, never mind participating in a government.
Yesterday's events mark the closing of a turbulent and troubled chapter in the history of this small island. For 30 years, the IRA has wreaked destruction and fostered division in Northern Ireland and it is a good thing if the republican movement has come to question the wisdom of its ways. There never could be any justification for the murder and the mayhem which the IRA inflicted on innocent families for more than a generation; for the 3,000 deaths, the hundreds of injured and the broken families left behind.
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To remember the victims of IRA violence at this time is not to diminish the significance of the announcement made by Gen de Chastelain and his colleagues in the Culloden Hotel yesterday. There is no gainsaying that it can only be a helpful step forward in a political peace process which has floundered on the twin-track strategy of the Armalite and the ballot box.
Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness can hardly be surprised that the delay in IRA decommissioning has devalued yesterday's events. There have been many false dawns since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998 when the decommissioning of arms was always fudged. The worldwide war on terror since 9/11 changed all of that. The most seismic shifts in public opinion, North and South, have come about since last December with the Northern Bank robbery, the money-laundering and the brutal killing of Robert McCartney. The IRA leadership came to be convinced that it could pursue its aims through politics rather than the gun.
Arriving, albeit belatedly, at this defining juncture, it is to be hoped that the delay in decommissioning will not scupper its potential for moving the political process forward in the near future. The omens are not good.
It is fair to say that Gen de Chastelain and his two colleagues on the IICD acted with the utmost integrity in carrying out their tasks in recent days. The Irish and British governments gave them agreed estimates of the number and quantity of arms held by the IRA. They reported that their inventory was consistent with the material decommissioned. They believe that the arms decommissioned represent "the totality of the IRA's arsenal".
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The report of the two independent witnesses to the decommissioning acts, Rev Harold Good and Fr Alec Reid, seemed to the ordinary onlooker to add to the authority of Gen de Chastelain's military account. They spoke of the experience of "seeing with our own eyes, on a minute-to-minute basis, provided us with evidence so clear and of its nature so incontrovertible that, at the end of the process, it demonstrated to us, and would have demonstrated to anyone who might have been with us, that beyond any shadow of a doubt, the arms of the IRA have now been decommissioned."
But there will be no waking up to a new dawn in Northern Ireland this morning. Such is the breach of trust between the two communities that the Rev Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party were critical of the day's developments. They accused the two governments of duplicity and demanded more transparency. How the details of the "numerics" and the "inventory" of the arsenal could guarantee the unionist community that the IRA has stood down as an army for all time is a moot question. It was not one of Dr Paisley's most credible performances.
The decommissioning of IRA arms may close one chapter. Another protracted process begins. The response to yesterday's announcement demonstrates in the most tangible way possible the breakdown of trust between the two communities in Northern Ireland. It would seem clear, at the time of writing, that an extensive confidence-building period will be required if there is to be any reconciliation of positions.There is another road to travel to the restoration of devolved government.
There will be debates in the coming days about the new mode of the IRA now that it is ceasing to operate as an army. The IRA is not going to go away. There will be questions about Sinn Féin's commitment to the criminal justice system. There is the whole question of policing. There will be the wait for the judgment of the International Monitoring Commission on the ending of criminality in the new year. And there will be the hope that the unionist community can be convinced over time that another significant step has been taken. There is merely a new beginning.