Spare a thought this bank holiday weekend for the 1,000 comrades gathered at the Labour Party conference in Tralee. While there may be an enforced ceasefire in the war about the war, in that the leader and the president are no longer taking opposing sides on Yugoslavia, there will be other conflicts to keep the tension high.
This is the first conference since the merger with Democratic Left, and it is Ruairi Quinn's first as leader. The latter development has progressed smoothly enough but unhappiness about the former is still simmering away. Many this weekend will be counting the number of Labour people who have dropped out and how many DL members have joined up.
Then there are the divisions about foreign policy and the battle between the two camps fighting for the one Euro seat the left can hope for in Dublin. Bernie Malone has old Labour on her side and Proinsias de Rossa has DL. New Labour is divided between them, with the leadership veering towards the new ally, if only to get him out of the way. To say the two sides are at daggers drawn is to put it mildly.
The debate on foreign policy, the most controversial, is scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow. The comrades have two theories on this. The serious ones say that putting important issues on early gets delegates out of bed; others maintain it's to keep those with a hangover away so the truly committed can have their way, even if the vote isn't till 12.30 p.m. But will the doves or the hawks win the day?
The new DL delegates have no votes in elections for the executive and the general council, because special places have been allocated to them until the next conference in 2001. But they can vote on motions. While the leadership has squared the high-profile pacifists and got them into his bunker, Quinn's remarks in yesterday's Irish Times backing an EU defence capacity (a.k.a. army) should provoke the peaceniks into resuming hostilities.