The Stormont estate was laid out more than 75 years ago, not long after the first-ever television broadcast, yet it caters well to the modern media age.

If the arrival of hundreds of foreign journalists at Parliament Buildings yesterday was a "media circus", then fittingly there was plenty of room for circus tents on the lawn.

The Big Tent, the so-called media centre, offered telephone lines and a wireless internet connection.

Outside there was space for a long line of TV vans, and - without tripping over themselves - journalists from around the world beamed reports from the front of the Stormont facade.

Among them was Robin Oakley, who spent much of the day broadcasting developments live globally for CNN by satellite. Formerly political editor of both The Times and the BBC, Mr Oakley worked alongside some of the other most familiar names in British journalism.

Overseas reporters included Charlie D'Agata, of CBS news in the United States, who described the atmosphere as "exciting".

"It could be the thing that so many people in Northern Ireland want and that is hope," Mr D'Agata said. "We spoke to many residents today, on the Shankill Road and the Falls Road, and there is a healthy scepticism but also a great deal of hope."

Above: How we reported yesterday's historic event

Floris Van Straaten, from Amsterdam, who has visited Northern Ireland numerous times as the UK correspondent of the paper NRC Handelsblad, said: " I have covered Northern Ireland for some time. I missed some of the previous historic moments but I was determined to be here because it is the completion of the process, as it were."

He added: "They (the politicians) could be fighting next week, but for the time being they seemed determined to make some progress."

Gary Gibbon, the political editor of Channel Four News, said: "It was a real set piece."