"HEAVEN has no rage, like love to hatred turned. No hell a fury, like a woman scorned."
The words are those of the Restoration poet and playwright, William Congreve and the speaker Ms Ita Tighe, chairwoman of the Beaumont hospital branch of the Irish Nurses' Organisation.
It gas a day when, as another delegate put it, they could feel angry but also proud to be members of the INO, proud to be nurses and very proud to be women.
Only one male delegate spoke during yesterday's debate on nurses' pay.
If Mr Jeremy Jeffery was also the only delegate to receive a cool response from delegates it was because of what he was saying, rather than his gender.
He was the only speaker to suggest, somewhat gingerly, that nurses might not win much more by way of concessions if they took strike action.
"I'm not saying that the Government shouldn't offer more, but recent studies have shown that when people take strike action they come out with little more than when they went in," he said.
There was a "danger of losing public sympathy and empathy".
It was a curious reversal of the old pattern in nursing, where it was the male dominated psychiatric nurses who had to drag the women along.
The general secretary of the INO, Mr P.J. Madden, when trying to explain how badly the negotiators had misjudged the mood of members, reminded them that it was only three years since he had tried to have a comprehensive debate on pay at a national conference and it had "died" for want of speakers.
There was no shortage of speakers for yesterday morning's three hour debate on pay. Perhaps Ms Tighe's contribution caught the mood of the meeting most eloquently.
After quoting Congreve she went on to say. "Our members have shown their scorn for the Government's pay offer and their fury by their overwhelming rejection of its terms."
Like many other speakers she went on to highlight what they see as the most obnoxious aspects of the deal, such as reduced pay scales for entrants to the profession, the pay anomalies for ward sisters and the inadequate early retirement scheme.
"I realise we cannot get all our demands at once", she said. "But there is a huge lack of trust in the Department of Health.
"We have been patient, co-operative, pliant, flexible, enthusiastic, self motivating, educating ourselves. And where has it got us?
"Successive governments have shown their scorn for our just demands.
"Well, we have shown scorn for their pay offer and we will show our fury if we are not treated with respect and given a proper pay structure and early retirement in our own right.
"Remember delegates, the elections are coming up, maybe now, definitely next year. It's not just this Government that is to blame but successive governments."
Another delegate went so far as to suggest a nurses' candidate be put up in the next general election, which brought a surprisingly warm response, given the obvious scorn in which the meeting held all politicians.
It wasn't just pay that nurses discussed with fervour. A report like "Pathway to Progress", which looked at the development of the profession, would have sent delegates to many male dominated conferences shuffling for the bar, but at the INO delegates' chairs remained full.
Like so much else being debated, the report was part of the nurses' strategy to stake out a claim for a say in every aspect of their profession and the health services.
After this dispute, whichever way it goes, nursing and the health services in Ireland will never be the same again.