The IRA statement did not hearten everyone, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor.
An outsider might be forgiven for thinking that the IRA had announced it was intensifying its campaign, not calling it off.
Unionists from party leadership level to street level have reacted with suspicion to P O'Neill's statement and outright hostility to the British government for its actions since the statement was delivered.
But why? "If southerners lived up here in the Shankill, they'd know why we're not happy," says Jimmy Creighton, a community worker in "loyalist west Belfast", as he calls it. "People should have been in Ardoyne on the Twelfth when ordinary people - ordinary innocent people - had blast bombs thrown at them. Ceasefire? What ceasefire?"
The problem is a simple one of credibility. "Back in 1998, I supported the Belfast Agreement," he says. "But what has happened now is that truth has gone out the window."
The past week is marked in unionist minds not by an IRA commitment to purely democratic pursuit of its ideals, but by the release of the Shankill bomber Séan Kelly and the swift demilitarisation programme, including the standing down of the locally recruited Royal Irish Regiment.
"Last month Peter Hain sent Kelly back to jail because he had evidence from the chief constable. Then he let him out again. Now, you can't tell me that both those decisions were correct." For Mr Creighton, the basis of the agreement itself has been torn up.
"When this process started, 10 parties were involved. There was inclusivity. Where is the inclusivity now? There are just two parties now, Sinn Féin and the DUP. Look what happened the UUP at the last election. The DUP had better watch out because people who lent them their vote will just as easily take them back." He angrily denounces the British government for what he sees as its dismissive attitude towards Ulster Protestants.
"We're the new croppies," he claims. "But I'll tell you, these croppies won't lie down either." He forecasts that Protestants will not be bought off by IRA decommissioning either - no matter how the process is verified. "Get rid of the guns today, get new ones tomorrow."
Mr Creighton is chairman of the Shankill Mirror, a community tabloid in the loyalist heartland.
"Blair and Hain have gone too far," complains the press release announcing the newspaper's campaign against British policy following the IRA statement.
"The Shankill Mirror has experienced the wave of absolute disgust at the sacrifice and destruction of the Royal Irish Regiment. Following the release of the Shankill bomber, Seán Kelly, and the dismantling of the countless watchtowers and police stations, this ultimate sop to republican terrorists is the ultimate insult to the unionist people of Northern Ireland."
To that end, the newspaper "has undertaken to drive forward a province-wide campaign to send a clear message - 'enough is enough'. We do not and we will not accept this surrender to republican terrorists." The newspaper will struggle to "put a stop to this unacceptable handover of our country to Sinn Féin". Any hope by either Irish or British governments that this is mere local hyperbole is deflated by BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback. The daily phone-in show acted like a lightning rod for unionist disbelief and anger at events following the IRA statement.
"Our calls doubled on the day the demilitarisation was announced," The Irish Times was told. "We had calls from serving RIR soldiers, who claimed it was the first they had heard their battalion was to be stood down. Many of them started ringing each other to find out more news." The release of Seán Kelly attracted comment as did the IRA statement the following day, but it was the move to wind down the British army presence and the RIR in particular that enraged ordinary unionists.
While the Northern Ireland Office doggedly sticks to its preferred term of "security normalisation", the bulk of unionists see nothing other than capitulation to the empty promises of P O'Neill.
There is hurt and anger at the betrayal, but it is not universal. Outside Belfast there are signs of a different mood. "People are pleased at the [IRA] statement but what they want is action," says the Rev John Pickering, rector of Drumcree, in Portadown, Co Armagh.
"I think they will accept the words of the statement, but they seem to want to see statement being acted upon and they want action sooner rather than later."
He stresses the need for continued hope and for vision.
"There's got to be hope this will be solved and that there will be a political settlement. There has to be vision for the future, that there is a way ahead." He insists there is "great possibility" of a better future. "Lose that," he says, "and you lose everything."