It was a day we were told we'd never see, a moment of startling goodwill and common cause after decades of conflict. And while, in the circumstances, we might perhaps have expected some words of conciliation and concord, the palpable warmth surely took us by surprise.
But yes, it happened. John Bruton said, sincerely, on national radio: "I think Eamonn McCann put it very well . . ."
All that remains now is for a reciprocal gesture to help cement the process. Over to you, Eamonn.
What Bruton was complimenting was actually less a statement from McCann than a double act comprising the Derry journalist and Fintan O'Toole. The latter was ostensibly the interviewer, presenting The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday) on Tuesday evening as the groundbreaking IRA words were rolling in; understandably, O'Toole's pundit-gene took over and he launched intense, excited and penetrating statements at McCann like so many surface-to-air missiles.
O'Toole and McCann are not necessarily the most likely bedfellows themselves, but they were in verbally torrential agreement here. Their theme was that the IRA decommissioning statement was a repudiation of traditional republican "theology", in that it seemed to give its allegiance to the peace process and the will of the Irish people, rather than to the apostolic succession of physical-force republicans, who have taken the chalice handed down from the 1916 Rising and the 1918 elections.
It's a perfectly reasonable analysis that - in the happy heat of the moment - omitted a pertinent fact: the "theology" hasn't gone away, you know. There were already many republicans who, in effect, shared the McCann-O'Toole analysis, and rounded it off like so: the Adams-McGuinness leadership, like so many before, has forfeited the inheritance. The ranks of those republicans will be swelled by decommissioning. In that context, the Last Word decision to finish Tuesday's programme with Jim Cusack's sanguine assessment of the poor state of the Real and Continuity IRAs was not quite as reassuring as it was meant to be.
Perhaps it would have been churlish or foolish or treasonous to fill the airwaves this week with the would-be republican chalice-takers. But you can be sure they would have had something to say about the less-than-metaphysical reasons that republicans might want to hold some weapons - as Ireland's media sweethearts, Billy Hutchinson and David Ervine, coolly assured listeners to all sorts of programmes that decommissioning had nothing to do with loyalists, nuh-uh, no way.
In the context of a continuing loyalist campaign, it was also touching early in the week to hear the punditocracy opine about the obscenity of the IRA holding Semtex, which could obviously in no way be defined, they said, as a defensive weapon. This in a State which has used its position as president of the UN Security Council to insist that Cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan, 6,000 miles from US shores, are a form of self-defence protected by the UN Charter. (Another favourite Irish pundit-point on the decommissioning issue has been "September the 11th", as most of them strangely insist on definite-articling it.
They should check out the US media, which reported the IRA gesture with very, very little reference to "the war on terrorism", which is viewed there, with perhaps a touch of racism, as quite distinct from the Irish "troubles".)
But hey, whatcha gonna do, phone Gerry Ryan (2FM, Monday to Friday) or Liveline (RT╔ Radio 1, Monday to Friday)? I doubt it - entering into an argument like that would entail the programmes adopting a sense of proportion. Which would ruin all the fun, right? Last week, too late for this column's deadline, they got ridiculous mileage out of the couple of hundred yards one driver, who happened to be Nigerian, careered up Henry Street.
It was very serious business, no doubt, for those injured or terrified in this awful situation. But enough was actually known about the incident by the time Liveline went on for Joe Duffy to have shown a little less tolerance for an eyewitness caller who protractedly compared it to the collapse of the World Trade Centre. Mobile telephones make this sort of reportage all too easy, and Liveline's success in delivering the first news of the New York attacks may have made the show a bit too bold about opening the airwaves to live nonsense.
But for nonsense it was hard to beat Gerry the next morning, who happily, and on mature reflection, opened the airwaves to racist diatribes about "these people" and the things they get up to. All Ryan's noted smarts notwithstanding, it was disgusting stuff, and the Howard-Stern vibe was complete when, in the same hour, Gerry was treated to a strip show live in his studio. Laugh? I almost gagged.
So are the phone-in shows beyond parody? The funny-folk behind Luneen Live (RT╔ Radio 1, Friday) don't think so. This programme is, um, well, you know, kind of a parody of a phone-in show.
Not satire, they insist. Whatever it is, there are some lovely touches, as when presenter Luneen (Deirdre O'Kane) - who sounds scarily like some of those trial summer presenters of Liveline from a couple of years back - comes out with her slightly overextended "God bless" at the end of a call: "May God protect you in every way and I pray that blessings will rain down on you from this moment until the time of your death."
If it sounds a little Mrs Doyle-ish, it could be because the main writer of Luneen Live is Arthur Mathews, one of the writers of Father Ted. The gaggle of laugh-a-minute comic actors includes, in addition to O'Kane, Risteard Cooper (AprΦs Match), Pat Shortt (D'Unbelievables) and Paul Woodfull (Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly). Janey, that's a whole lotta funny.
Except Luneen Live isn't, really. It sounds rather like a lot of talent getting together to show off just how throw-away they can be with their time, their absurdity and their wit.
Like this stupid bit they did where the radio show has a competition: the caller gets three middling-tough general-knowledge questions, but he gets a full hour to answer them. And then the prize is, get this, £100 off car repairs at some local garage, where, we're assured by the bubbling presenter, the coffee is always brewing. Puh-leeze.
Oh wait, sorry, let me check the notes again. Right, excuse me, that was a real afternoon competition on Dublin's Country Drive, the new country-music station.
In fact, the Luneen Live competition was where Luneen had to say a tongue-twister, and if she succeeded the listener had to take her for a drive every Sunday and buy her drink for the rest of her life, heh-heh. Now, lads, see what I'm saying about "beyond parody"?
But hold the phone: radio can also be seriously good. Morning Ireland (RT╔ Radio 1, Monday to Friday) featured Tommie Gorman in Belfast sounding freed from his Euro-shackles and doing lively, personality-filled reports on the week's events; and Richard Crowley in Palestine filed the most extraordinary and powerful series of horrifyingly atmospheric frontline stories.
And before Tommie and Richard were gleams in David Hanly's eye, Eamonn Kelly was doing riveting radio, as heard in tributes to the great Kerry storyteller this week. Now he's gone, but thanks to the magic of archiving, he'll not be forgotten.