Ian Paisley remains wedded to the negative, but there were hints some unionists see potential for progress after decommissioning, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
Northern Ireland is finding it difficult to come to grips with IRA decommissioning.
Yesterday the argument raged over whether this was partial or full IRA disarmament.
There was a level of agreement that the IRA had put a very large amount of its weapons beyond use, but a myriad of views over whether this was the end of the Provisional IRA gun in Irish politics.
No matter which way you look at it, Monday was a huge moment in Irish history. But beyond the usual political bickering what was most striking was the oddly dispiriting sense of anticlimax about the event.
One official captured that feeling well. "This is big, but it should have come much sooner," he said.
"Had this happened five years ago, or even two years ago, look what it would have done for Northern Ireland, for the peace process. Look what David Trimble could have done with it. Now it's back to the long, tortuous road to getting a deal."
In recent days Ian Paisley had the option of two responses: saying: "OK, I hear what the IRA said it has done. Now we'll sit back and test it to see does it fully deliver"; or denouncing it all as "duplicity and dishonesty" and effectively depicting the the Revs Harold Good and Alec Reid as the dupes of the IRA.
You would think from a strategic sense, at least, that it would have been in the DUP's interest to pick the first option in order to push the spotlight back on the IRA, to make that organisation prove over the months ahead that it was meeting its July 28th statement pledges to fully disarm and end activity.
But Dr Paisley chose the latter option, and many unionists agreed with his assessment of events. For instance, the Sinn Féin-supporting Daily Ireland front-page headline yesterday was "Farewell to Arms", but the News Letter, formerly pro-agreement and now leaning to the DUP, ran with the banner, "It's Just a Cover-Up".
Dr Paisley held to that view yesterday. After an engagement with Gen de Chastelain, he met the press to again speak of his concerns.
He had absolutely nothing positive to say about IRA decommissioning. His whole concentration and energy were forcefully directed to the negative.
His deputy, Peter Robinson, was more nuanced and constructive, but it is Dr Paisley who is running the DUP show.
That sort of constant pessimistic focus can get people down. It was certainly having a draining effect on Nuala from Holywood, Co Down, who rang BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme yesterday.
She was in a mixed marriage. She raised her children to be non-sectarian. She came back from England five years ago to live in the North. But the past year had so disheartened her that she was now considering clearing out again.
Politicians should talk to each other to overcome their differences, she said.
Some unionists rang the programme saying they believed the word of former Methodist president Harold Good. Others said the Doc had got it right. David phoned to say that he was a DUP supporter but was concerned that Monday was "all based on negativity".
Monday, he added, was in fact "an excellent day for the union" because it meant that "the IRA did not win the war".
And so it ran through the day until yesterday evening, when the Ulster Unionist Party met Gen de Chastelain. UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy said he was from south Armagh and knew a little about the republican mindset.
He also personally knew Mr Good and was absolutely certain that he was a man of integrity and that he saw what he said he saw.
Mr Kennedy said he believed the IRA did carry out a significant act of decommissioning. Now the UUP would test the IRA to see if it delivered on its commitments. There appeared to be a strategic logic in that approach, but Dr Paisley would not agree.
"The more the searchlight is put on this the more we discover there is a cover-up," he was absolutely certain.
At the ploughing championships in Cork, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said he was was unperturbed.
He believed that in time the DUP would come round. And so would Dr Paisley.