This time last year at the teacher conferences the air was thick with threats. Threats of strikes, school closures, exam disruption and open conflict with the Government.
The media laid siege to Killarney's Great Southern Hotel, where the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland was holed up, to hear dire warnings from teacher leaders.
The conventional wisdom was that if the ASTI disrupted the State exams the Government would be defeated. Some even said the mere threat would be enough to give the ASTI a famous victory.
The theory was simple. Anxious parents of exam students would become nervous and would pile pressure on the Government, which would then have to sit down with the ASTI and hammer out a deal, probably for a 30 per cent rise or something close to it.
If it had all gone according to script, teacher leaders would be appearing before their members at this week's conferences as conquering heroes.
If only it were that simple.
Many teachers arriving this afternoon for the three main conferences are deflated or angry. There is no pay rise, no Government walkover, no unity of purpose, and no conquering heroes.
Members of the ASTI in particular have had a traumatic winter. Their five-month campaign was meant to be the bridgehead for all teacher unions to make major pay advances, but this has not happened.
Their members gathering in Galway have most reason to feel downhearted. Many will be angry because from their perspective the sacrifices made during the winter have resulted in nothing but a limp offer from the Government of a seat on the benchmarking body and a small annual computers grant.
Many of them never wanted to embark on a campaign which involved disrupting exams, but were jollied along by fellow teachers who believed threatening exams alone would be enough to break the Government.
It was not, and there is now a void at the heart of the ASTI's strategy. That void can be summed up in the comment of one teacher over the weekend: "After you've gone on strike for months, threatened the Junior and Leaving Cert exams and protested on the streets by the thousand, what's left?"
The question is likely to be asked repeatedly at its conference.
The result of the ballot on whether to accept the Labour Court's revised proposals is due in the weeks after the ASTI's conference, but the speeches and general atmosphere at the conference are likely to shape subsequent voting patterns.
The crucial period of self-analysis for the ASTI comes on Thursday afternoon, when the union debates the Labour Court proposals. The session is scheduled to be in private, but there are other motions on pay due for debate tomorrow afternoon which should give observers an indication of the mood.
Early indications are that the leadership could face searching questions from members, but this could pale beside the likely reception for the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, who addresses the conference tomorrow.
He begins his circuit of the teachers' conferences tomorrow morning in the more tranquil surroundings of the INTO conference in Tralee, Co Kerry.
It is not that INTO members are any less angry than their ASTI colleagues; it is just that the INTO general secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole, has managed to keep them focused on getting what they want through the benchmarking process.
This strategy is not supported by a large number of members, but he has managed so far to steer his union clear of strikes.
However, Mr O'Toole will have to hand over to someone else soon, with one of two candidates, Ms Catherine Byrne and Mr John Carr, his most likely successor as general secretary. The result of this contest should be known on Thursday night or Friday morning.
In Bundoran, Co Donegal, the TUI leadership is facing its own challenges. A group of branches opposed to its pro-benchmarking strategy have tabled a resignation motion which is the first item of business tomorrow morning. Most sources say the union's executive will survive, but by how much is not clear.
As a counterpoint to the predictable emphasis on teachers, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) also holds its annual conference this week in Ennis, Co Clare.
Unlike the teachers, the mood in USI is upbeat, with rising membership and a president, Mr Julian de Spainn, who has managed during the year to raise the union's profile, and who, in the time-honoured tradition of student activism, has managed to get arrested.