Brian Rowan was among the audience in west Belfast, watching men who were once sworn enemies talk to each other on first name terms.

It was another of those moments and events that not long ago would have been unthinkable, and yet yesterday it seemed so natural and routine.

Jackie McDonald has for a very long time been part of the loyalist paramilitary leadership, a ‘brigadier’ on the UDA Inner Council. For decades, the republican Sean Murray was a significant figure and leader in the IRA’s war.

And Chief Superintendent Mark Hamilton knows policing with the RUC and the PSNI.

Yet yesterday on a platform as part of the West Belfast Festival they sat together and talked together on first name terms.

We take it for granted now, but not that long ago, this would not have been possible. There was no sign of a protest yesterday — no sign of the dissidents.

McDonald with one of his quips captured the significance of the moment.

“Who’d ever have thought that Sean, Mark and myself would have been sitting in the same place,” he said, before making a joke about Castlereagh, for many years the place of police interrogations.

Yesterday was not comfortable — there were tough questions about policing in republican and loyalist communities, about parades and flags, the scourge of sectarianism and racism and, after recent events and rioting in Ardoyne, also questions about plastic bullets.

“We have to have something other than live rounds to deal with that situation,” Mark Hamilton said, describing a situation in which officers were attacked with breezeblocks, petrol and blast bombs and fired on.

He made clear there was “no desire to use them” — meaning plastic bullets and he talked about “very tight” guidelines and rules. None of this impressed Sean Murray who was sitting next to him.

“They are lethal weapons,” he responded — saying the police had to find an alternative.

“These weapons are totally unacceptable to our community — full stop,” the senior republican said.

On another issue, the Lord Mayor Naomi Long talked about the “use and abuse” of flags, and about how they can be used to intimidate rather than celebrate.

It was a day of tough questions and tough talking, and it was a significant day, because of who was there to answer.

In that event — staged as part of the West Belfast Festival — we got another confirmation that the war is over.