Frank McNally / Conference sketch: You know there's an election in the air when politicians start kissing babies. But it's a sign of his determination that Mark Durkan has gone the whole hog by fathering one on the eve of the expected May poll.
The SDLP is often accused of being too old. So when the party leader presented his five-week-old daughter Dearbháil on stage at the party conference, dramatically lowering the platform's average age, the infant was given a rousing welcome.
The other guest of honour was somewhat more mature, but he won a warm reception too.
Fresh from Tony Blair's apology, Gerry Conlon came to thank the party that helped secure it.
And as well as giving the SDLP an excuse for self-congratulation, it was as if he'd lent it some of the righteous anger of his famous walk to freedom.
For the past 15 months, the constitutional nationalists had been condemned to the sidelines by the two governments, for something they didn't do.
Vindication has not diminished the SDLP's rage. The party was back in its spiritual homeland, on the left bank of the Foyle (whose waters were suitably stormy).
Events at a different kind of bank hung over the conference, however.
Sinn Féin attempted to change the subject, with a silent protest outside featuring portraits of the hunger strikers and a banner asking: "Were these men criminals?"
But this wasn't the question, really, and Durkan didn't answer it.
Instead, under a theme of "reclaiming the good name of Northern nationalism", he offered republicans concrete examples that he hoped might assist the movement's internal debate on the nature of crime.
The murders of Jerry McCabe and postman Frank Kerr were crimes, he said.
The recent "family hostage robbery" (as he awkwardly renamed it, realising that even nice SDLP supporters have little sympathy with banks) was a crime.
Above all, he added, "abducting a mother of 10 and disappearing her body for over 30 years is a crime".
The last example was aimed at Mitchel McLaughlin, the man Durkan must defeat if he is to hold John Hume's Foyle seat.
This was the conference at which the great man took his bow from public life, and the campaign to defend the stronghold he has held for 22 years threatens to rival the siege of Derry. "Get out there and fight like we've never fought before," Durkan urged supporters.
The agenda was not entirely dominated by the political crisis. At a fringe meeting, for example, health spokeswoman Carmel Hanna called for legislation to extend the Republic's smoking ban northwards.
To paraphrase Pádraig Pearse, the SDLP favours an Ireland not only united, but smoke-free as well.
Crisis was the overriding mood, however, albeit that this crisis is not without hope for the party.
Also stepping down from public life, Séamus Mallon made a passionate defence of the middle ground that has recently been so out of fashion, but might just be making a comeback.
The short, exciting marriage of the DUP and Sinn Féin had ended in tears, as SDLP people always knew it would. And sure enough, they're the ones who've ended up holding the baby.