Old republicanism is dead, long live new nationalism! That's the message Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness's handshake with Queen Elizabeth has sent across Ireland.
This change will not come about this morning magically as if McGuinness was the political version of Harry Potter. This will instead be a long-term tactic of symbolism eventually leading to a new relationship with Britain.
Just as the Good Friday Agreement peace process began in 1998, this handshake will start a new phase of the peace process.
This will see the South form a closer link with Britain through Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).
Irish politics is cluttered with the art of the impossible. The so-called Chuckle Brothers routine between Ian Paisley and McGuinness was one of the most successful and stable political coalitions Ireland has ever seen.
But just over three decades ago, if you had said then that one day Sinn Féin would sit at a partitionist parliament at Stormont with the DUP, you would have been told to seek psychiatric help. But it happened.
Ironically, the new peace process which McGuinness and the queen have set in motion is almost a carbon copy of the Home Rule crisis that plunged the island into generations of conflict a century ago.
This new phase of relations will signal greater all-island co-operation. Given the Republic's financial situation with the euro bail-out, the South will seek a closer link with Britain, with initial membership of the CPA a first step.
The modern CPA boasts a membership of more than 50 national and regional parliaments, some of whom were never members of the British Empire.
The handshake is preparing Sinn Féin to return to the roots of its founder Arthur Griffith, a fan of the dual monarchy system in 1905 – two nations, one monarch.
The handshake will also see Sinn Féin phase out the influence of the IRA prisoners and membership's influence within the republican movement, as a new generation of 'draft dodgers' grips the party.
But just as de Valera had to crack down on the IRA after the Irish Civil War in the 1920s, McGuinness may have to oversee a campaign to eradicate groups such as the Real IRA and RAAD.
The queen will also be diplomatically sending a message to Unionists. If she can shake hands with a former IRA commander, the Protestant Loyal Orders can meet nationalist residents groups to solve the parades dilemma.
Could a republican grandfather and an octogenarian monarch have finally solved the Drumcree dispute with a mere handshake?
