They disrupted everyday life for more than 20 years. Now unionists, who have always seen security checkpoints as providing a semblance of security in an area where the IRA would otherwise have operated with impunity, say they are being abandoned. Nationalists claim helicopter patrols have simply made the checkpoints redundant. But all agree on their disruptive nature.
There's also a question of semantics: when the British army press office says close, it does not mean dismantle, remove; all but one of the checkpoints are to remain, ready to be reactivated should the IRA - Provisional or Continuity - once again pose a serious threat. At least that's the official line.
However, repeated army assurances that the remaining checkpoints are simply being moth balled have been met with incredulity by unionists.
And nationalists, many of whom would almost always treat British army statements with scepticism anyway, are, for once, inclined to agree with their unionist neighbours. At a time when other well-known military installations across the North are being dismantled, they are asking: "Why not here?"
The army says only one of the seven remaining Border checkpoints - the Gortmullan crossing near Ballyconnell - is to be dismantled, because the newly restored main road between Enniskillen and Cavan makes it redundant. Other areas must wait until the security authorities see fit to remove them.
In Roslea, a mile or so from the Monaghan Border, local Sinn Fein councillor Brian McCaffrey says people are disappointed that the sprawling checkpoints on either side of the village aren't coming down just yet, although personally he doesn't believe it would make any great difference. The announcement that the checkpoints are to close is, he says, an act of deception, an attempt to fool people into believing that demilitarisation is taking place in this part of Fermanagh.
"In recent days there have been as many as nine British army and RUC patrols in the village of Roslea alone. This is in addition to RUC mobile patrols and helicopter activity. It is clear, given this level of patrolling, that nothing will be changed by the closure of the checkpoints," he said.
Meanwhile, down on the Cavan Border, a spokesman for the group Farmers and Residents against Military Bases (FARM), Mr John O'Reilly, says that the British army is simply claiming credit for something that has already happened.
Living in the shadow of the huge Wattlebridge military installation (said to cover an area of up to eight acres) Mr O'Reilly says to all intents the checkpoint has ceased to operate as such for the past two years, although it has served as a mobile patrol base and presumably for surveillance.
In the overwhelmingly nationalist Derrykerrib area the announcement that it is now officially closed is being treated with much cynicism.
Mr O'Reilly said: "As far as we're concerned, it's a book exercise, gaining brownie points. It does nothing for the people on the ground, it's just a bargaining tool. If they are going to remove them, why not do it now? Why not say they are moving them altogether? They have taken down checkpoints in more troubled areas than this.
"The amount of trouble here on the Cavan Border has been virtually nothing, yet they've decided to keep the checkpoints," said Mr O'Reilly.
But Border Protestants take a very different view. It's nearly 25 years since a landmine cut short Ernie Madill's RUC career. Mr Madill lost a leg and has had to use a wheelchair ever since. Although continuing to serve in the force and despite seeing many of his colleagues forced out of the area, he decided against moving away from his Aghadrumsee home, just a couple of miles from the Monaghan Border.
A number of years ago the nearest Border checkpoint, at Lacky Bridge, was removed and the road cratered. Mr Madill recalls feeling distinctly more vulnerable as a result, and he expects that unionists who had drawn comfort from the very presence of the remaining checkpoints will be alarmed about the prospect of their imminent closure.
"They were probably of limited use, although they did act as a deterrent and they did give you some peace of mind, especially if you lived close by. When you heard the helicopter about and knew there was army on the ground, you felt that bit safer. "When they closed Lacky Bridge checkpoint it left the whole thing more open, it left it a straight run back to Clones. But we had neighbours killed and there were that many ways they could have come across."
Mr Madill has no faith in army assurances that the checkpoints will remain intact and ready to meet any terrorist resurgence.
"I think there would be a timetable about the checkpoints - the English do things that way. They think there is peace, but this will be the third time in my generation that there has been peace, and each time they went back to violence. I would be very sceptical. They'll take the checkpoints down one at a time, but it's only a matter of time before they are all down," he said.
Another man who lives on the south Fermanagh Border said he welcomed anything which would help restore normality to the area, although he wondered whether the reasons for closing the checkpoints were right.
"People would be of the opinion that it's a political rather than an operational response. The Secretary of State is in a kind of Basil Fawlty mode, you know: don't mention the war. If the reason why they were being closed was strictly operational, then OK, but I'm not convinced."