We now know the truth about three political leaders: Tony Blair is not in the grip of Clintonic superficiality; Bertie Ahern's negotiating skills do work outside a Dublin context; David Trimble, for so long the object of venom within the North's chattering classes, has confounded such critics.
But it is not over. This will be the week of the big wobble within mainstream unionism: meetings of the Grand Orange Lodge and the 800-strong Ulster Unionist Council could yet derail, or at least seriously complicate, David Trimble's project.
But it is striking that critics of the Ulster Unionist leader focus on the emotive aspects of the Northern Ireland Agreement, rather than the long-term constitutional and political arrangements negotiated. Indeed, senior figures in the rejectionist unionist campaign privately acknowledge the deal does not mean the end of the Union.
In the short term, emotional revulsion on prisoners, the RUC and perhaps the Irish language is the great strength in the rejectionist case. In the longer term, it may prove to be its great weakness. For now, the truth is plain enough.
Rightly or wrongly, most unionists do not want to see the early release of paramilitary prisoners. They do not see the need for RUC reform. And they do not want to see the vigorous promotion of the Irish language.
As copies of the Northern Ireland Agreement flop through the post-box into Northern homes this week we can expect an anguished response. This will be most understandable in the case of those many people who have suffered terrorist violence.
In the past, Stormont governments were relatively liberal in their release programmes for IRA prisoners. The RUC has already been the subject of substantial reformist schemes and still commands majority support. As for the Irish language, in the 1930s Lord Charlemont, the Stormont minister for education, instructed his ministry to recognise the Irish language in order to "disarm criticism on the part of anti-British elements in the population".
In a community at best indifferent to the lessons of history, these points might not help Mr Trimble. But he does have a strong argument here: bluntly, all these unpopular measures reflect British policy and were likely to be implemented whether the deal had been done or not.
But the new proposed constitutional arrangements are a different matter. Here Mr Trimble has a more positive story to tell. The Assembly arrangements are cumbersome indeed: but this body's future depends on the reinvigoration of the SDLP and the continuation of a solid working relationship with the UUP; a working relationship based on unionist acceptance of equality of esteem and enhanced North-South co-operation.
Anyway, the very existence of an Assembly is a triumph for Mr Trimble. As for the revamping of Strand Two, his supporters claimed it would be possible to negotiate a North-South body with an organic and accountable link to the Assembly.
They also claimed it would be possible to eliminate unacceptable "frameworkery" - the rhetoric of a dynamic harmonising executive embryonic all-Ireland government structure - and focus instead on cross-Border elimination of welfare fraud and so on. And so it has proved. None of this, by the way, precludes agreement on more ambitious and mutually beneficial schemes when trust has grown.
On Strand Three, Mr Trimble has a new linkage with the rest of the UK in the arrangements for co-operation with the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales. This could be particularly important as the argument about public expenditure in the UK regions gains pace.
He has negotiated the removal of the Irish territorial claim as part of a new international agreement in which Ireland, for the first time since 1925, unambiguously accepts Northern Ireland's status as part of the UK. He has got rid of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and with it the Maryfield Secretariat.
The longer the unionist community has to mull over these facts the better it is for Mr Trimble's prospects. So his opponents must strike quickly or they will lose the battle before it starts.
At the moment, a significant minority in the Ulster Unionist camp is disillusioned. But this disillusionment comes in two shapes. There are those who rejected the talks process from the start - perhaps 25 to 30 per cent - but there are also those who largely accept the new constitutional deal but have been lost on decommissioning or prisoners.
These people could come back on board, especially if a majority of Northern Irish people say Yes in a referendum. After all, even Dr Paisley, who is a consistent democrat in this respect, has said he would accept a united Ireland if a majority voted for it. And this deal is not a united Ireland.
In the longer term, Mr Trimble's strategy is to rejuvenate unionism and make it fashionable again with the Protestant middle-class. The great long-term risk to his strategy is the countervailing strategy of Sinn Fein.
Initially Sinn Fein will attempt to psych Mr Trimble's support base. He has already been hailed as the unionist de Klerk. It will be suggested the agreement is inherently transitional to Irish unity, in defiance of the opinion of good judges such as Seamus Mallon, John Bruton and Tony Blair.
But if this strategy fails, Sinn Fein might well demand admittance to political office without stepping further along the road which separates them from violence. At that point, the two governments would face the test Kevin O'Higgins faced in 1927.
The concept of a "slightly constitutional party" was only tolerable for a short time in the South in the 1920s. As Mr Ahern's remarks over the weekend indicate, in the North today also the idea is coming to the end of its shelf-life.
Paul Bew is professor of Irish politics at Queen's University Belfast