DUP foot-stomping as reassurance: how about that? No doubt many groaned at the sight and sounds of Ian Paisley on obnoxious form, threatening that secret British government assurances to him will be "pushed down their throat" and that the DUP will "give them a knock between the eyes" so they "see stars and not celestial stars". Stand back a little, and there is comfort to be had, writes Fionnuala O Connor
One way of reviewing the past 12 years is to regret the sluggardly pace of change. Another perspective has it that cautious advance was unavoidable, perhaps even the best way to proceed. Then there are those too young to remember Northern Ireland pre-1994, the creeping hopelessness of earlier decades in both Dublin and London. It was easier to say, and many said it, that the North was impossible: both sides as bad as each other; the only possible solutions London rule or to bang heads together until tribal leaders agreed to co-operate, while the "men of violence" were crushed by whatever means necessary.
The solution now mid-programme satisfies neither know-alls nor diehards, but then those sectors of opinion never had anything better to offer. The worst begrudgers have always suggested, of course without explicitly saying so, that the Troubles were somehow more satisfactory than the painful compromises that followed.
Not all critics are so mean-spirited. A course which has brought once-violent republicanism into a dominant place in politics outrages many.
A permanent Stormont administration combining Sinn Féin and the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists is not a delightful proposition. That it should be in prospect is a measure of how far the 12-year process has come: the combination yields some comfort.
It is simultaneously the most unlikely and formidable of pairings. If these two stand together, who shall stand against them? On reflection, delete "stand together". Standing side by side will do: acquiescence in an indispensable partnership. To the jaundiced eye "the Doc" has been in long retreat from Never-Never Land. Only the most sheeplike of the faithful believed that the DUP ministers, in the executive headed by David Trimble and the SDLP, somehow remained untainted by powersharing. The half-in, half-out tactic fooled few. It was meant to be deniable and was duly denied.
Given the Paisley history, few had any confidence that the DUP leader would get himself this far into an arrangement that he condemned so scabrously as treachery, when David Trimble was the prime voice of unionism.
To be corralled, on the other hand, to be given no future other than noisy irrelevance and the slow demise of his party: in the end perhaps that constituted effective pressure. On this occasion, the man who thinks it virtue to say no found himself required merely to accept congratulations on his long-lived marriage, and a copy of an agreement between two prime ministers who had been strenuously nice to him.
Paisley-watchers have always wondered if the way to sign him up for compromise might be to present him with a fait accompli which he could rubbish, then sulkily operate. At first, he did better than that. In St Andrews, with domestic celebration ahead and "Baroness Eileen" (as Bertie Ahern called her respectfully, if not entirely accurately) in the audience, Ian Paisley sounded a statesmanlike note, talked of the possibility of a better future for every child in Northern Ireland. Then he arrived home to the first dissenting voice for years from inside his party. When it came time for another walk into history last Tuesday he balked, and we got a flashback.
Despite this week's little flurry - stage-fright would appeal as explanation if anyone but Ian Paisley was the central figure - it still seems more likely than not that inside the next six months the DUP leader will become First Minister Designate, poised to head a powersharing Executive side by side with Martin McGuinness.
That overused word "ironic" does not begin to describe it. Sinn Féin will not just become junior partner in a Northern Ireland government, it will jointly head it. Republicans who so recently killed Northern police officers will help police the despised and denied six-county state. The outraged might pause to consider that taking responsibility for policing is the irrevocable final step away from trying to overthrow the state.
If the day of responsibility comes, and it now seems more "when" than "if", the North's peace could at last develop conviction and stability. Having convinced their own followers long ago, Gerry and Martin seem amused rather than angered by this week's tantrum, more relaxed in their retreat than Ian in his. They have an all-Ireland playing field, of course, rather more to gain than the DUP. But the DUP's leader has mortal as well as immortal longings, and his legacy to tend. The rest of the population can only stare, switch off their memory banks and cheer him on.