Perhaps you missed it in all the excitement, but the Sunday just past was International Waffle Day (IWD).
"International" may be overstating it a bit, because the event is not celebrated here, at least in the culinary sense. Nor is it marked in the US, which is big enough to host a "world series" without involving any other countries (except Canada). Perhaps, as with the International Criminal Court, Americans are nervous of subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of IWD, lest their waffles be judged harshly by foreigners with an agenda. At any rate, they have their own Waffle Day in August.
In Sweden, where it originated, the whole point of IWD is that it marks the onset of spring. March 25th falls close to the vernal equinox. It even used to be the official New Year's Day in some countries. And of course for Christians, it is also the Feast of the Annunciation - or "Our Lady's Day" - which is where the waffles came in, circuitously.
Waffle Day is a linguistic accident, it seems, albeit probably a deliberate one. Food was never far from the thoughts of Europe's founding fathers, even the Lutherans. So although Lady's Day in Swedish is "Varfrudag", some dialects made this sound like "Vafferdag", which by a process of corruption became "Vaffeldag", and therefore an excuse for eating. Eggs were plentiful at this time, thereby clinching the case for waffles, served traditionally with all three meals on March 25th.
How "waffle" gained its alternative English usage, as a verb meaning to talk evasively and at length, is a mystery. My Oxford English Dictionary has closed the case, stamping it "origin unknown". But both the word and the concept it describes are popular in Ireland. And in this sense, at least, Sunday's event was marked handsomely in these parts.
The Taoiseach himself kicked it off with his eve-of-International-Waffle-Day address to the Fianna Fáil ardfheis. Strictly speaking, there were too many detailed spending promises in this to qualify as waffle. But the party's subsequent attempts to explain how none of it amounted to "auction politics" certainly made the grade. Political journalists were being served waffles for breakfast, dinner and tea on Sunday, just like in Sweden.
Mr Ahern, meanwhile, had flown to Berlin for the Treaty of Rome celebrations, where the waffle irons were also in overdrive. There were actual "Brussels waffles" on the street party food stalls, according to our report. But if the EU stands for anything, it stands for producing vast amounts of verbal waffle, especially in treaties. So Romano Prodi's call for Europe to rediscover its "creative madness" promised exciting developments.
Back home, however, waffle lovers faced a potential crisis in the looming deadline for the Northern talks. Certainly, it would have been an ironic turn of events if the never-ending peace process negotiations had finally reached a conclusion on International Waffle Day.
This would have entailed decommissioning the vast armoury of clichés needed to describe what is - or more often isn't - going on in the process. The armoury includes an estimated several thousand "stumbling blocks", an unspecified number of "impasses", and a large quantity of industrial strength "logjams" (believed to have been imported from Libya in the late 1980s). But by Sunday night it was clear that the crisis had been averted and the parties had agreed to talk for another six weeks before doing anything.
The striking thing about Monday's events in Stormont was that, after years of being invited to "round-table talks", the DUP and Sinn Féin announced their agreement at a square one. No doubt this was symbolic of the distance still between them. But circular furniture has been a mainstay of progressive politics since the time of King Arthur and it remains to be seen whether the Knights of the Square Table can combine effectively for the common good.
The other striking visual image of this, apparently climactic phase of the peace process is Ian Paisley's fedora. Perhaps he has the same fashion adviser as another famous Northern Protestant and style icon, Van Morrison, who also took to hat-wearing (in this case a homburg) late in his career and is now rarely seen without one.
In most other respects, the two men's careers hardly bear comparison. Indeed, critics of Dr Paisley would concede that - on the credit side - at least he never recorded a duet with Cliff Richard. And yet, in both cases, the late move towards flamboyant headwear seems to have been accompanied by a marked mellowing of their personalities.
Sartorial symbolism is well established in Northern Ireland, from sashes on Orangemen to Easter lilies on republicans' lapels. As the peace talks developed, Sinn Féin spokesmen took to wearing sharp suits. And whenever there was an impasse or a logjam in the process, they would appear with their ties off and shirt collars open, as if to presage the hard work necessary (to "move the situation forward").
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe Dr Paisley is just trying to avoid catching a cold. But as a final gesture to International Waffle Day, it would be pleasant to think that the DUP leader signalled Monday's historic compromise in the time-honoured manner of talking through his hat.