Millions of people watched on television and approximately 1,000 invited guests attended yesterday's ceremony in Oslo City Hall as Mr David Trimble and Mr John Hume accepted this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway led the procession of dignitaries into the hall to a fanfare of trumpets. The awards were presented by the chairman of the Nobel Committee, Prof Francis Sejersted.
In the opening speech, Prof Sejersted told the recipients: "We welcome you to our cold but peaceful north."
He said everyone knew problems still lay ahead for the peace process and the foundations were brittle.
But he pointed out that the IRA ceasefire - "an important condition for progress towards peace" - remained in force, adding that "a return to earlier conditions of terror" was unlikely.
He said that "more than anyone else", Mr Hume was the architect of the peace process. The SDLP leader had been subjected sometimes to harsh criticism "for his gentle approach to the hardliners".
When Mr Trimble was elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party he was a relative newcomer to Northern Ireland politics and was known as an uncompromising unionist but subsequently he, too, had come in for strong criticism for his conciliatory stance, he said.
"They have both been criticised for their moderate and inclusive approach."
However, a real peace process needed such people, who were willing to take risks. When the award was given previously to the Peace People of Northern Ireland, it was also criticised as a "premature" gesture. But Prof Sejersted said the committee bore in mind Alfred Nobel's intention that the prize should advance the cause of peace.
Setbacks did not mean the efforts of the latest recipients were in vain. He said peace was built slowly - "like drilling through hard wood".
Prof Sejersted then presented a gold medal, diploma and cheque worth approximately £344,000 to each recipient. Mr Hume's speech dwelt on themes he has made familiar during his 30 years in politics. He compared the Belfast Agreement with the process of reconciliation and reconstruction involved in establishing and consolidating what is now the European Union.
Mr Trimble's speech contained a wide range of intellectual references, from Edmund Burke through Plato and Rousseau to Samuel Beckett and John Bunyan.
On the weapons issue, he said he had not insisted on "precise dates, quantities and manner of decommissioning".
All he had wanted was a credible beginning: "All I have asked for is that they say that the so-called `war' is over."
Speaking of his hopes for the Assembly, he quoted Burke's belief that parliaments should be guided, not by factional interest, but "the general good resulting from the general reason of the whole".
He was "happy and honoured" to accept the prize on behalf of "all the peacemakers" involved in the Belfast Agreement. "That agreement showed that the people of Northern Ireland are no petty people. They did good work that day. And now tomorrow is another day."
There were several musical interludes. Havard Gimse began with Be Welcome with Honour, composed by Geirr Tveit. The Belfastborn flautist James Galway, with Phillip Moll on piano, played Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits and Francesco Morlacchi's The Swiss Shepherd.
Afterwards, one of the chairmen of the multi-party talks at Stormont, Mr Harri Holkeri, said he enjoyed the speeches. "They reflected the real feelings of the ordinary people."
The Ulster Unionist MEP, Mr Jim Nicholson, said: "I thought Trimble gave a very balanced speech for the audience he was addressing."
Mr Mark Durkan, an SDLP Assembly member, said Mr Hume's speech showed he was not afraid to dream but Mr Trimble was "obviously very suspicious and wary of dreams and visions". The differences between them were valuable but he hoped the UUP leader was not advocating that politics in the North should be "a dream-free zone".
Mr Dan Bye, a Norwegian supporter of Sinn Fein who lives in Oslo, said: "I am missing a certain man here today, namely Gerry Adams."
Senator Chris Dodd from the US said Mr Hume had done "a wonderful, wonderful job - he rose to the occasion".
Although he felt Mr Trimble's oration was "fine", it was "too rooted in the practical but that's an important element".
Sir John Gorman MC, UUP Assembly Member for North Down, was particularly delighted at his party leader's numerous references to "my hero Edmund Burke", a person who straddled the religious divide and "anticipated so much of the future of the world". He said it was "a great day".