Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern today visited the Rev Ian Paisley's heartland in Ballymena to launch an anti-sectarian scholarship named after 15-year-old Michael McIlveen - a Catholic brutally killed in the town last year.
Democratic Unionist mayor Maurice Mills said the absence of protests against Mr Ahern's visit was a measure of the political progress that has been made in Northern Ireland.
Mr Ahern agreed but said more work was needed to address sectarian attitudes in society.
"It is absolutely changed times - changed times in that Dr Paisley can come down to Dublin as well and not throw snowballs or whatever at us," he said.
Mr Ahern and Mr Mills visited young people at the All Saint's Boxing Club in Ballymena, where the actor Liam Neeson once boxed, to attend the launch of New Day, an initiative encouraging young people to address sectarian prejudices.
They also launched a scholarship at St Patrick's College in memory young Michael who was one of its pupils.
He died after being assaulted with a baseball bat in the town in May last year. A number of youths are awaiting trial for the his murder.
The killing was condemned across the sectarian divide at the time and Dr Paisley, then an MP but not yet Northern Ireland's First Minister, sympathised with his grieving family.
Pupils from nine local Protestant and Catholic schools will be chosen each year to work on special reconciliation projects.
The Government has contributed nearly stg£60,000 (€80,000) towards the Michael McIlveen Scholarships, which will run for the next five years.
Kate Magee, the principal of St Patrick's, said while schools in the area had been laying the foundations of working together to confront sectarianism, the killing of Michael McIlveen had acted as a catalyst.
"After Michael's death, we felt we could not wait any longer. We needed to get this up and running," she said.