Saturday's events had turned a low-key, tending to dull, Gaelic Athletic Association annual congress into the most historic since 1971 when the ban on "foreign games" was lifted in Belfast.
The Taoiseach's speech came at the end of an extraordinary couple of days' behind-the-scenes activity during which the ambition of the GAA president, Joe McDonagh, to do something about Rule 21 dovetailed with Mr Ahern's desire to inject some momentum into the referendum campaign.
Mr McDonagh evidently sees the current situation as being an ideal opportunity for the GAA to contribute something to the momentum of the peace process. The Taoiseach will have been aware that the audience he addressed on Saturday night is an influential one for the purposes of selling the deal to his nationalist constituency, north and south of the Border.
Neither should Mr Ahern's persuasive powers be underestimated. He is already popular with the GAA because of his general support for the association, including the £20 million lottery allocation. If he delivers progress on the British army use of the GAA ground at Crossmaglen, his views on Rule 21, specifically, and the Northern Ireland Agreement in general will carry even greater weight.
In the context of the peace process, the issues of Rule 21 and the occupation of Crossmaglen Rangers' ground by the British army became entwined, not primarily that one was to be an inducement for the other, but because they both represent momentum, symbols of a willingness to embrace fundamental change.
The whole enterprise has been a big risk for Mr McDonagh. Although recent events have created a perfect opportunity, the world was not short of people who doubted his stomach for a task of this nature and thought he would find some way of fudging his response to events in the North.
To his credit, he has gone out front on this controversial issue and, by taking a lead, has created space for both Northern and Southern delegates. In the past, Northerners have held an effective veto in that many of their Southern colleagues were reluctant to oppose them even if they had misgivings on the issue.
Now with the president's lead, Southerners can feel more comfortable about voting according to their opinions, whereas there was detectable among some Northern delegates a recognition that the special congress would be decided on a 32-county vote, with no particular weight attaching to Northern counties.
Despite the optimistic assumption that the proposal for repeal will be carried swiftly and decisively at the end of May, there remains the obvious vulnerability that the move may founder on events over the next six weeks.
Certainly if the referendums fail, that would cast an enormous shadow over the initiative's chances of success. There may also be a hardening of attitudes among some of the Northern counties which have expressed themselves unhappy at being "bounced" into the whole question of deleting the rule.
Rule 21 has, with the exception of a five-year spell at the turn of the century, been in the Official Guide since the foundation of the GAA in 1884. There have been few attempts to repeal it. The last serious instance was at the 1971 congress which lifted the "foreign games" ban, but mysteriously the companion-motion on Rule 21 was withdrawn. With the Troubles rapidly escalating, it was to be a long time before the prospect of abolition was again raised.
Three years ago Down became the first Border county to pass a motion calling for repeal. It was narrowly passed, by two votes out of more than 100, but joined similar motions from Dublin, Sligo and Carlow on the clar (agenda) of the 1995 congress.
Fearing a divisive debate and the prospect of the motion not receiving a third of the vote, the then GAA president, Mr Jack Boothman, proposed a compromise: that a special congress on Rule 21 would be called "should circumstances in the six counties call for such action". This compromise is the basis for Saturday's decision.
Whereas Mr McDonagh may, if circumstances change for the worse, regret not ramming through the deletion when he believed he had the chance on Saturday, his decision is logical if he feels confident of success next month.
"This isn't really about getting your numbers right," said one delegate close to the president. "It's about leadership and hoping that people will follow."
On that score, no one can find fault with Mr McDonagh at the end of his first year in office.
