Ken Maginnis, the UUP security spokesman with arms decommissioning on his mind, can already claim credit for the handing over of one piece of artillery.
After a long day at the negotiations last week he was on the motorway and the battery in his mobile was running low, when I called to talk to him about it.
"Call me in an hour," he said. "I should be at home by then, and I'll have it powered up again."
He was somewhat relieved, I think, not to get a call at home about politics. Lord knows, he had given enough interviews that day.
This convivial chat was mainly about guns, although rugby, his sporting passion, came into it too.
This piece of decommissioning started a year ago. Mr Maginnis, pressed by the authorities in Grey Point, Crawfordsburn, Co Down, where there is a historical military museum, (better preserved, it might be said, than what has been left behind in Cork Harbour), asked that one of the Cork-based artillery pieces might be transferred there. It was done without a hitch.
A six-inch artillery gun was dismounted from Fort Davis in Cork Harbour and moved north.
That Mr Maginnis should have asked and that the Government through the the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews should have acceded so readily is, perhaps, a sign of the changing times.
The straight-forward co-operation is in contrast to some years ago when a statue of Queen Victoria was removed from its place of prominence in UCC to be replaced by a statue of St Finbarr.
There were political overtones both North and South. The Victoria statue was offered to various institutions in the North but not accepted. remember, remember UCC's motto is "Where Finbarr taught let Munster learn."
O'Rahilly insisted that the queen's statue should be destroyed. But it wasn't. The groundsmen couldn't bring themselves to do it, and instead, it was buried in the President's Garden.
In 1995, it was found again and dug up. It was offered to and not accepted by institutions in Northern Ireland. There were political overtones. The next question was should a part of UCC's history be displayed once again. That had political overtones too, and it didn't happen either. Well, at least, the statue was never displayed in an openly prominent position. It still exists, though, and it you wish to see it in the college, you may do so. But due to chance and common sense, it has survived, and may now be seen to this day. The whole thing seems pretty trivial now but was't then.
When the historians come to explain everything and to put everything in its historical context, maybe sense will emerge. The story that appeared in the Irish Times, caused some controversy.
In any event, the statue of Victoria, thankfully, was preserved. Perhaps, soon, it will be put on show again by UCC or accepted by an institution elsewhere that would value it. Statues of the young Victoria are few. The handover of the old gun to more appreciative people in Northern Ireland is, however, a reminder of the extraordinarily under-developed amenities of the old military forts around Cork Harbour.
Here is a story of missed opportunities in a State that professes never to have known such riches. It is probable that anywhere else the forts ringing Cork Harbour would be money-making interpretative centres and huge tourist attractions with restaurants and many other facilities.
One could envisage guided tours, picnic areas, facilities for children, etc. But none of this has happened. Why not?
There seems to be a reticence about borrowing and investing and some concern that public liability insurance might prove too much of a burden.
Cork County Council was given the rights to Fort Camden now Meagher some years ago. What a magnificent installation and what potential. However, it has never been realised.
The former Fort Carlisle, nowadays Fort Davis, is still in the hands of the Irish military, and is an important part of how our armed forces are trained.
Since the days of the Congo, we have had a proud tradition of overseas deployment. Today, our servicemen are being trained in "Fighting in Built Up Areas," (FIBUA) in army jargon, and "DIBUA" which is a similar mission but a defensive one.
Fort Davis, with its ramparts, tunnels and difficult access, is an ideal location for putting the troops through their paces.
Units from throughout the State know it well and respect the challenges it can throw up.
A lesser fort is Templebreedy. But it was also an important part of the defences of Cork Harbour. A decoy fort, the military men might say, in that when Camden drew fire, it could engage the enemy in an unexpected crossfire.
It is hard to believe that the powers that be, some years ago, without any view to history, or at best a limited one, ordered that many of the gun emplacements should be scrapped.
They went to the iron foundry. Now, there is little or nothing left. But the forts remain. They are as much a part of our history as that bust of Queen Victoria. Something should be done about this.
The history of the Cork forts goes back to the late 1700s when bad weather, not an uncommon phenomenon in the south-west, ensured the planned French invasion aimed at Bantry, never came to pass.
Had the weather been finer, slim British defences would probably have been overrun and Irish history might have turned a different page.
The attempt, though, was enough to forewarn the British and they vowed never again to be left so vulnerable. They set about ensuring that the opposite would be the case.
In doing so, they created a remarkable legacy around Cork Harbour. However, the defences mounted there have been treated shamefully, some would say recklessly.
The port cities of London, Bristol and Cork were once regarded as the major cities in the British Isles.
Cork and Bristol were significant trading partners. Cork's Butter Market sent its produce to British forces all over the empire. The city was also a gateway to the New World.
Its harbour was one of the finest and deepest to be found anywhere in these islands, and after the debacle in Bantry, the powers that were then in London decided to do something about defending it properly.
There began a defence development programme that would probably be mind-boggling if translated into modern prices. The fort at Spike Island, a prison these days, now known as Fort Mitchel, was originally built using convict labour at a cost of about £1 million in the early 1800s.
The Irish military who took it over from the British recall that when they had it very little was spent. But when the prisoners were moved in, and that's before they burned it down in the 1980s, huge amounts of money became available to make the place more convivial for the juvenile offenders, including some of Cork's notorious young car thieves.
Some years ago, I took a private boat out to the prison island to interview a car thief who had perched himself atop a 40-foot radio tower in the prison courtyard.
He was making a protest. He wasn't quite on hunger strike because he had sense enough to bring packets of biscuits with him. What was getting to him was all the fresh air. He simply wanted to go back to Mountjoy Prison to his mates, and eventually, he did.
And just to conclude with the detente bit, the Royal Irish Artillery Museum, based in Woolwich, London, handed over a 12-pounder cannon in 1998 to the Government. It is now on view in Collins Barracks, Dublin.