It came as no surprise to most members of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland this week that Dr Robin Eames chose Armagh as the place to announce his retirement at the end of this year. As the longest-serving Anglican archbishop, the Archbishop of Armagh was the most senior primate in the Anglican Communion, and the high points of his ecclesiastical career were often on the international stage.
The trust and confidence he gained among successive archbishops of Canterbury, and his gravitas, innate diplomacy and sharp legal mind cast him in a role that initially was not of his own making. He became the "trouble-shooter" in global Anglicanism, and held together the 39 self-governing Anglican churches through successive crises over women bishops and doctrine as he steered through the Eames Report in 1989 and the Virginia Report in 1991.
Only time will tell whether he has managed to do the same with his careful work in producing the Windsor Report in 2004 following the consecration of an openly gay man, Bishop Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. The personal attacks on him by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria may indicate that the most vitriolic conservatives feel they are fighting a losing battle.
At home, Dr Eames has often been more a constitutional canon lawyer and a cautious church politician than a deep theologian, and he sometimes appeared uneasy with liturgical flexibility and innovation. However, his handling of the debate on the ordination of women was magisterial. Because of his clear-sighted but sensitive handling of the General Synod at the time, the Church of Ireland has found itself in a position today that makes it the envy of most bishops in the Church of England.
In inter-church relations, Dr Eames was personally committed to achieving the present close relations with the Methodist Church, reflected in the covenant between the two churches. There is a genuine personal friendship between Dr Eames and Archbishop Seán Brady, mirrored perhaps in their cautious handling of the recent Drogheda concelebration controversy, but expressed visibly in their body language at public events.
Behind the warm smile, many know there is a man of steel. Nevertheless, he was deeply grieved that he could not bring about a solution to the one major crisis that unravelled in his own backyard - the stand-off in Drumcree churchyard. Only his closest confidants know the hurt and pain this has brought him. Yet his determination and wisdom deeply influenced the negotiation of the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, and he left his personal stamp on the wording of the agreement, which quotes directly from the Book of Common Prayer when it refers to the "inestimable benefit" of peace. He may have been an ecclesiastical colossus who could stride across the global stage of Anglicanism, but his quiet contribution to the political stability of this island may yet become his single greatest achievement.