Dail Sketch/Frank McNally: It was the day the Government was to reveal what Bertie Ahern had called its "end-line position", but when it came, the revelation was less than dramatic.
The Coalition partners shuffled a bit on the Shannon issue, before staying where they'd been all along - neutral in favour of the allies. Our end-line would be to help them get to the front-line, while protesting our continued neutrality and hoping the war would be over quickly.
Irish neutrality is a bit like Irish coffee. They were both invented in the middle of the 20th century and have since achieved iconic status, although the ingredients are notoriously variable. The transatlantic stopover has also loomed large in each. It was where one was invented and - if you believe the opposition - it's where the other one has finally floundered.
Young Fianna Fáil TD Barry Andrews summed up the confusion even on the Government benches when he admitted that being neutral meant "different things to different people". Those who "worship at the altar of neutrality" were in an uncomfortable position, he said, sounding like a man who was struggling with his faith.
Alongside neutrality, however, the Government's other by-word was pragmatism, memorably explained by Willie O'Dea. In an entertaining, if geographically confusing, speech the Shannon-side TD announced that the "Rubicon" had been crossed by the allies, and that while we didn't have to follow them over it, we shouldn't take the principle-paved road to "El Dorado" and "Nirvana" either. If we went that direction, he suggested, we might soon meet France and Germany "coming back the other way".
After that we needed a signpost to relocate the Government's end-line position, and Brian Cowen provided it. Ireland didn't have the luxury of other European neutrals who refused overflight rights, he said. We lay in the direct path between the US and the Gulf, whereas Austria was "easily circumnavigated". Faced with the "hard choice", the Government had combined "our principles and our interests".
Truth may be the first casualty of war, but the PDs' moral high ground also appeared to have fallen early when Mary Harney disqualified herself from comment on the morality of the situation. To withdraw facilities from the US meant "we would be saying we were standing in judgement...and we condemned them," she said.
"We do!" shouted the Greens' Eamon Ryan.
There were peace protests all around the Dáil. A pensioner was escorted from the public gallery , while Fianna Fáil senator Terry Leyden - a non-combatant in yesterday's hostilities - had paint thrown on him outside.
Inside, there were things being thrown too - mostly names. Trevor Sargent called the Taoiseach a "fraud", and Aenghus Ó Snodaigh dubbed the Government "crawlers". But the most bitter exchanges came when Mary Harney accused Joe Higgins and others of sympathy with "corrupt Stalinist dictatorships". An incensed Mr Higgins pointed at Seamus Brennan and snarled that it was he who "sat down with the beasts of Baghdad" in 1988 to negotiate a beef deal months after the Kurdish massacre.