And in that place, on those seats in that Stormont Hall, their shoulders touched.

Martin McGuinness fought and ended the IRA's war. And Ian Paisley has come to the place of power-sharing.

And, in their hands, those two men now hold our political future. This is the new era, the new beginning, and it can work.

It can work because they want it to and because the people want it to. This is not about forgetting the past. It is about making the future, and it is being made out of change.

Inside the army council - inside the IRA - Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams delivered ceasefires, decommissioning and support for policing. They did it their way, and it took time.

It took time to move an army of war into politics and towards peace and it was done without significant damage to the republican movement. That was important, because it means there is no threat to this new day.

The war is over and the dissidents know it. They haven't got the guns or the bombs to threaten the peace, but, even more importantly, they haven't got the support. Adams and McGuinness and the IRA and Sinn Fein leaderships have outmanoeuvred them in every twist and turn.

But there is more to it than that. The dissidents can't move without the police knowing. Their campaign, if it can be called that, is the playing out of a phoney war, which they know they cannot win. They have been defeated in the debates within republicanism - the debates that Adams and McGuinness won on their way to yesterday and that new day.

In the Stormont hall, the makers of the peace were brought together, but some were missing. Where was Brendan Duddy? More than three decades ago, when war was war and peace was nowhere to be found, he was trying to get the British and the IRA into a dialogue. He may not have been at Stormont yesterday, but his has been a significant contribution to what we now have.

"I'm a very happy man," he told me. "In terms of the Stormont situation, this may not be the last chapter in this book. So what? The war's over, the killing's over, and if normal politics makes for impossible moments in the future, the people have chosen the road."

Some of those like Brendan Duddy, who have helped in the making of this peace remain unknown because, for years, they chose not to take the stage. Their contributions, however, have to be remembered.

The late David Ervine would have loved to have been there yesterday - to see his prediction realised. He knew that Paisley and the 'Provos' would come to make the deal. However, his widow, Jeanette, was at Stormont, and that was important.

So, what are the next steps? Soon, the Army will be gone. We'll see Sinn Fein on the Policing Board. General de Chastelain still has work to do with the loyalists, and they still have work to do to be part of this peace. Then, there is the question of the past, and how it is settled.

But, for now, let's accept what we have. The war is over. And that was heard in every word and seen in every picture in those remarkable moments at Stormont yesterday.

The man of the army council and that other man of no and never are telling us that things can be different.

They already are.