The SDLP is a party on the threshold of power - or at least power-sharing. No wonder there was a buzz in the air at its conference in Newry over the weekend.
But it could all go horribly wrong. The delegates were reminiscent of a theatre company that was delighted to be opening on Broadway, but unsure how long the show would last.
On a superficial level, it could have been the ardfheis of any mainstream party in the Republic, taking place between a general election and the formation of a government. There was the same nervousness about translating the rhetoric of opposition into the reality of government and the same quiet speculation in corners about who would get which portfolio.
But the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons is not a consideration in the formation of governments south of the Border. Here in the North it is still the key issue.
Privately, senior SDLP figures were bitter about the way the whole controversy has come back to life like some inextinguishable political vampire.
The gist of their sentiments was as follows: "Don't the unionists and their fellow-travellers understand the mindset of the IRA? The ceasefire is genuine - not a stunt like the LVF, to get prisoners out of jail - but anything that smacks of surrender just isn't on. This is not the way to handle the issue. Look at the South - where are the Fianna Fail guns? What did the "Stickies" - those new-found friends of the unionists - do with their guns? You don't need decommissioning to have a properly functioning democracy."
The public mood of the conference may have been upbeat, but in private conversation there was deep anxiety over the stagnation of the peace process and growing concern as to the real intentions of the Ulster Unionists.
In his opening address, Mr Seamus Mallon set the end of November as a deadline for the issue of cross-Border bodies and governmental structures to be resolved. Political insiders said this was a litmus test of unionist commitment: the decommissioning issue had been put to one side, but constitutional nationalism needed a deal soon over North-South institutions and the number of seats in the new executive.
There are suggestions that the Taoiseach may travel north on Thursday to meet Mr David Trimble. With the Fianna Fail Ardfheis coming at the weekend, Mr Ahern will not want to appear before the party faithful empty-handed. Likewise, there are high expectations of Mr Tony Blair when he speaks at Leinster House on November 26th.
The pressure is on. There were always going to be difficulties, wise heads pointed out. But the SDLP and Dublin are serious about IRA decommissioning over the two-year period which is specified in the Belfast Agreement. The clear message to republicans was: don't expect to get all your "bits" of the agreement without having to give up something yourselves.
Insiders took the view that senior republican spokesmen - whose "courage and leadership" received praise from all sides, including some surprising quarters - wanted to see decommissioning but couldn't sell the idea to their hard men and women. One suggestion was that it might happen further down the road: perhaps if the Patten Commission proposed an unarmed police force.
But the weapons issue remains unresolved and some of the finest minds in the peace process are practically at the end of their tether trying to devise a way under, over, through or around this perennial obstacle. The unionists might want to wait until the New Year, but the message from Newry this weekend was that it had to be "sorted" before then.
Naturally this problem came in for mention in John Hume's speech - a more thoughtful effort than his long-standing "single transferable" oration. But the main thrust of his remarks dealt with the future: the new politics and the opportunities arising as a consequence of the Good Friday pact.
Up to now, the SDLP had been what Mr Hume called "ideas people". Now it was time to move from dreams to reality, and, as Hume pointed out, there would be "no easy get-out clauses or alibis".
The previously inconceivable had become the commonplace and the norm, with an agreement which provided for power-sharing in a new Assembly, a North-South ministerial council and voting provisions which ensured that one tradition could never again dominate or exclude the other, as well as measures on human rights, prisoners, policing, security normalisation and criminal justice.
Mr Hume resisted the opportunity to crow over those who had criticised his initial dialogue with Gerry Adams. This was a time to be magnanimous, and he was lavish in his praise of republicans, unionists and his party's deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, who is now implementing the agreement as Deputy First Minister.
The word "peace" or one of its derivations was used 35 times in the Hume oration - making an average of one out of every 100 words. At one point he broke into a Gandhi-like series of incantations: "Quality of peace . . . peace is not an absolute . . . we want a true peace, a peace of the heart, a peace of truth and understanding, a peace of concord and reconciliation".
But just when it seemed that "Saint John" was about to be assumed into the stratosphere, he brought the tone back to one of hard practicality, outlining a New Labour-style programme of action for the party: economic development, better education and training, improvements in the physical and telecommunications infrastructure.
It was typical Hume: one hand on his heart proclaiming the ideals of peace and reconciliation, the other hand stretched out on behalf of his community for a European grant or US funding package to ensure that the rhetoric became reality. Having pressed all the correct buttons in his speech, the ending had to be just right, and it was. Having led his party and his community in the past with the anthem "We Shall Overcome", he had to find a form of words which evoked the struggles of old but also set the tone for the very different challenges that lay ahead. What better motto than the one he chose: "Let us overcome"?