The parchment containing the official result of the election was presented to the President-elect, Mrs Mary McAleese, by a senior Army officer in Dublin Castle on Saturday.
Past presidents have been given the news at their front doors with none of the pomp and ceremony of this occasion. Lieut Col Des Johnston took one step forward and confirmed, as Gaeilge, that Mrs McAleese had been elected President. He passed over the parchment and took one step back. "Go raibh maith agat," said the recipient.
Some photographers cordoned at a respectable distance away missed the moment. "Can you do it again?," asked a perturbed cameraman. You can't re-create history he was told. A compromise was reached and the Presidentelect posed as the officer pretended to hand over the document.
There was time for a few questions from the media. How did Mrs McAleese feel this morning? She said she was in "very, very good form, thank you very much. I had a very good night's sleep, I'm very relaxed and very much looking forward to the inauguration and the following seven years."
Was she absolutely sure that the document she held confirmed that she was the eighth President? "I'm fairly certain yes," she laughed. "My Irish is good enough to be able to understand that very well."
She would, she confirmed, be continuing Mrs Mary Robinson's tradition of the light in the window of Aras an Uachtarain. But she would use a lantern given to her children by the folklorist Davy Hammond, a friend "from the other side of the traditional divide".
The night of her election had been wonderful. "All the family were there," she said. "It was a great night of celebration and I think everybody formed a particular part of the tapestry".
She had received many messages of congratulations and it was "particularly nice to hear a special word from Mary Robinson" in New York.
And then she was gone, into her chaffeur-driven car escorted by her Special Branch bodyguards.