The inauguration of a President is a day for pulling out all the stops, and St Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle has more stops than most. From the watered-silk wallpaper to the gilded pillars, to the painting on the ceiling of Henry II accepting the submission of the chieftains, this is a room made for history.
And it was here yesterday that Mary II accepted the submission of Ireland's modern-day chieftains, among whom John Bruton - leader of the defeated Fine Gael tribe - looked particularly enthusiastic about the development.
Here too the gilded pillars of Irish society gathered around Mary McAleese in her moment of glory, among them three former Taoisigh. Liam Cosgrave, Garret FitzGerald and - his gilt a little flaky these days - Charles J. Haughey stood side-by-side on the dais in their capacity as members of the Council of State.
For Mr Haughey, there must have been a heavy sense of deja vu: Dublin Castle, cameras flashing, a hall packed to the rafters. But this time he was not the centre of attraction. As the Army No 1 band made clear from the moment of her entry, the day belonged to The Star of the County Down.
Finally sharing a stage with her predecessor, Mary McAleese rose to the occasion to display a presidential aura all her own. Her first speech as President unapologetically continued her theme of bridge-building, and her choice of quotations - Louis MacNeice and John Hewitt among them - marked a shift northwards in the balance of poet-power.
It was a near-faultless ceremony, but as always there was light relief in the few fluffed lines. As Archbishop Empey started to lead the congregation in the hymn, Be Thou My Vision, John Bruton was the only one on the dais to stand. He looked around, suddenly lost his nerve and sat down again, before the rest proved him right by rising to their feet.
The fraught relationship between Mrs McAleese and the media appeared to take another twist during the ceremony. Squeezed into one of the hall's two end-galleries, the press corps strained its collective neck throughout the proceedings, peering out over the balcony to see what was going on below. So the President seemed to be talking to us when she quoted the lines of the English poet Christopher Logue: Come to the Edge/We might fall./ Come to the edge/It's too high!/ Come to the edge/And they came/ And he pushed/And they flew.
She continued with an assurance that "when you decide to walk over the edge, there will be no need to fly, you will find there a firm and steady bridge across which we will walk together both ways". But for the media, this seemed like a bridge too far. Unnerved, we pulled in our necks and eased back onto the balcony.
The main cause of the neckstraining had been the fact that the most interesting seating arrangements were at the back. In an historic coupling, John Hume and Gerry Adams sat together, with Mo Mowlam and Lord Alderdice on either side and Senator George Mitchell nearby. There was much interest in who was talking to whom, and who was wearing which symbols.
In fact, the green ribbons of the Sinn Fein invitees were easily outnumbered by the poppies worn by British and Irish politicians. But there was one moment of unity when, in response to the urgings of the photographers on the balcony, Messrs Mowlam, Hume and Adams all looked up simultaneously. It seemed like a symbolic moment, but of what?
