Is it the morning-after optimism or the beginning of a long day's journey into night? Drapier, like everybody else in here, was moved, humbled and overjoyed at the signing of the Good Friday agreement.
It was a defining moment in Irish history, with Bertie Ahern, in his finest hour, climaxing the work of Jack Lynch, Liam Cosgrave, Charles Haughey, Garret FitzGerald, Albert Reynolds and John Bruton, all of whom have striven with courage and persistence to get the lasting settlement which now appears to be at hand.
Now, a week on, the doubters and wreckers are amongst us, the flaws and weaknesses, the inevitable contradictions and the unsquared circles coming under scrutiny. The enemies of the agreement are already in full voice, and the media, God bless them, or some at any rate, seem hell-bent on seeking out dissident voices, many of them obscure and rightly so up to now, and giving them their hour in the limelight.
Drapier wonders if some sections of the media are never happy unless they have a dissident voice to parade before us.
This is not so much about the inevitable opposition among sections of the Ulster Unionist Party, but about the attempt to parade dissident republican groups in front of us, giving them an importance they scarcely merit, and all based on the view that all points of view should be heard. There is always the danger that such exercises eventually become self-fulfilling prophecies.
And the daftness the McKenna judgment now visits on us. We are going to have a referendum on the settlement. Every political party in the country will be saying Yes: virtually every elected politician in Leinster House will be urging a Yes vote. But thanks to the wisdom of our learned judges in the Fourth House of the Oireachtas, time will have to be shared equally with people who have either never stood for election or, where they have, been soundly rejected.
Most belong to small, self-appointed, non-accountable groups. Yet RT E will be obliged to give them equal time, and the State will have to provide them with the same resources and back-up as will be available to the combined forces of all our elected politicians.
It may be meant to be democratic, but to Drapier it is daft and is an invitation to every publicity-seeking group to get its free share of the action. That said, no doubt the referendum will be resoundingly passed in the Republic, and Thursday's Irish Times poll confirmed that the overwhelming majority of the voters like what they see and will be proud to give peace a chance by voting Yes.
At the same time a No figure of 20 per cent is uncomfortably high, and it will take the combined leadership not just of all our politicians but of all major civic groups to ensure that the case for peace and sanity is put and put in a way that leaves no doubt.
The big question, of course, is whether or not the agreement will survive. Drapier doesn't know, but he does remember 1985 and the Anglo-Irish Agreement and he remembers putting that question to one of the architects of that agreement, only to be told that the two governments wouldn't have agreed if they did not think the agreement could withstand all conceivable assaults.
Drapier thought it arrogant at the time, but his Civil Service friend proved to be right, and he got the same answer this week when he put the same question to this man's successor. In other words the architects do believe that they have taken on board the lessons of previous failures and do believe that the agreement offers sufficient flexibility and space for it to be carried comfortably.
In talking about the architects, Drapier would like to single out for praise this weekend the "permanent government", the officials who have always been there, as governments came and governments went, and whose work has always been characterised by commitment, imagination and utter fidelity to the interests of the State.
Drapier, like all politicians, is frequently critical of civil servants, especially perhaps the mandarins in Finance, but this weekend let him say we are lucky in the quality and integrity of our civil servants, including those who laid the groundwork and retired before we got the final dividend last weekend.
On that list Drapier would include Dermot Nally, Sean Donlon, Ted Smith and Noel Dorr as well as the current group, Dermot Gallagher, Paddy Teahon, Martin Mansergh, Frank Murray, David Donoghue, Sean O hUiginn and the many others who have worked ceaselessly for this day.
But let Drapier single out one person in particular, because in Drapier's view she suffered needlessly and unfairly for simply doing her duty and doing it honestly. This is Dympna Hayes, who was dragged into public controversy during the presidential election by the treacherous leaking of her confidential documents.
Drapier will leave for another day the question of what has happened to that particular case since then; today let him praise Dympna Hayes as just one of the very fine people who have served us so well over the years in the Departments of Foreign Affairs and the Taois each.
During the week the most difficult question to surface so far has been, not Articles 2 and 3, which in Drapier's view have always had a fair element of hot air and closing-time guff about them, but the question of prisoners. Michael Kirby of the Garda Representative Association was quick off the mark and struck a sensitive chord. The gardai would not be happy if any of those who murdered their members were released, nor would they be happy if charges against others were dropped. Many would share this view, and the Government knows it is already non grata with much of the Garda Siochana.
This goes deeper than pay and conditions and is a difficult one for the Government, but not beyond resolution. Hopefully not, at any rate.
Drapier will not be at the Sinn Fein convention today nor, indeed, will he be in the Europa Hotel for the meeting of the Unionist Council. Ecumenism has not yet gone that far, but he wishes Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness well in their efforts to win over their delegates. He has no doubt they will be successful and he salutes the courage they have shown.
But it would be churlish not to pay a warm tribute to David Trimble as well. The opinion polls show that Trimble has majority support behind him in the North, and it is vital that this be maintained.
Trimble does not make it easy for people to like him and he would probably regard it as a failure on his part if Southern politicians were to find him charming or convivial. But no matter. He has shown guts and courage and he deserves to succeed.