It was the day normality came to El Paso. Nobody likes to talk about it now but there was a time when Dundalk was regularly compared to the notorious US-Mexican border town that served as a haven for gunslingers on the run.
Nowadays, Dundalk is a prosperous and peaceful place, reflecting the new era in cross-Border relations since the paramilitary ceasefires and the establishment of a powersharing Executive in Northern Ireland.
The powersharers arrived in force yesterday, led by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. They had come to meet their Southern counterparts, mostly Fianna Fáil Ministers, who also learned to share power in recent years: Eamon Ryan of the Greens was there as living proof of that change in entrenched attitudes.
Paisley was quieter than usual, not his normal ebullient self. But he perked up when asked about his Union Jack tie, a granddaughter's present.
Was he making a statement about being a unionist? "I don't need to say that," he replied. "You just need to look at me."
The occasion was a plenary meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council. The "Doc" arrived at Dundalk Institute of Technology with McGuinness, also wearing a very serious expression. Had the Chuckle Brothers turned into the Brothers Grimm?
The reason for their sombre demeanour became evident in a hastily-arranged news conference. Republican dissidents were on the warpath again. Paisley revealed that he was personally under threat: "But I always say, that threatened people live long."
McGuinness denounced these "so-called republicans" as "no-hopers" who wanted to bring the British army back on the streets.
But the sabre-rattling of the Real IRA has not weakened the powersharing set-up. On the contrary, it seems to have strengthened the working relationship between the DUP and Sinn Féin, who have staked their all on the project.
A backroom official contrasted the present dispensation with the rocky days when David Trimble was first minister.
"You were always looking over your shoulder," he recalled. Then you would look over the other shoulder - to be sure, to be sure. In tones of hushed amazement, he described the workmanlike manner in which the parties conducted their business. There were occasional rows of course - "but that's politics".
So we have got past the "pinch me, is it real?" stage when Alice in Wonderland seemed to be writing the Stormont script and everyone acted as if they were on Happy Pills. The current motto is "Business as usual".
Paisley and his DUP colleague Peter Robinson came to Dundalk on a previous occasion in 1986 when the latter had to make a court appearance about a loyalist protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement at Clontibret, Co Monaghan. The Old Robinson incurred a substantial fine. Robinson New was back yesterday as Minister for Finance, and he joked as he accepted a gift of locally-made Danucci chocolates: "That's another inch on the waistline."
Paisley, as usual, had the best line. Sources at the meeting said that, when Bertie Ahern mentioned he was meeting Gordon Brown at Old Trafford this Sunday, the First Minister smiled broadly and quipped in his inimitable sibilant tones: "You're breaking the Sabbath!"
After their deliberations, the politicians adjourned to the dining room, where they feasted on such local cuisine as Clogherhead chowder, Cooley beef (organic, of course) and "Boyne Valley Honeycomb Ice Cream".
There were no tortillas or Mexican jumping beans: the El Paso menu is harder to find in Dundalk these days.
