Sympathy vote goes to men behind the wire

Sean Mac Stiofain was elected chairman of the SDLP at its party conference in Belfast over the weekend. So what had we here? Hume-Adams run riot to its logical subversive conclusion, and the election of a former IRA chief of staff. But no, it's a different Mac Stiofain, although like the first leader of the Provisional IRA he too is an Englishman.

Jonathan Stephenson was reelected chairman by 126 votes to 116 for Joe Byrne from Omagh. Jonathan appealed to the nationalist heart of the SDLP by having his main welcome notice in the agenda booklet printed in Irish, and signed Eoin rather than Sean Mac Stiofain.

Without conviction he denied that the use of Eoin was an attempt to ensure that any nationalist resonances in his Irish name did not become confused with republican resonances.

"Irish scholars assure me that Eoin is the proper translation of Jonathan, and that Sean means Jack, or something . . ." he said.

At the weekend, we learned that the SDLP still aspires to a united Ireland, but not just yet; sometime in the pretty distant future will do, thank you. In the meantime, members want to strike a deal with David Trimble that ensures a proper Irish dimension to any settlement - if only David Trimble would deal with the SDLP.

So they frowned on any attempts by delegates to do what delegates like doing at party sessions, namely to get the blood riz by digging into the opposition.

Frank Feeley from Newry and another Englishman, Paul Hoban, also based in Newry, were ticked off by former chairman, Mark Durkan, for more or less suggesting that the unionists should cop themselves on, and the sooner the Brits got out the better.

That sort of thing is now ver- boten, warned Mark.

There was little mention of the Brid Rodgers-Mary McAleese saga over leaked Department of Foreign Affairs papers which caused so much embarrassment to the party during the presidential election. Brid Rodgers appeared to be mending fences with the Irish News, whose editorial line she also reportedly criticised in a supposedly off-the-record chat with a Department official.

Brid, in her address on political affairs, harped back to an Irish News editorial abhorring violence, which greatly pleased her. She mentioned the newspaper in glowing terms a number of times, although one presumes nothing should be read into the fact that the editorial dated back to 1979.

A unique feature of the event was that the SDLP had its own Lord Mayor, Alban Maginness, welcoming delegates to the conference in the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast - something that would have been unthinkable four or five years ago.

Overall, it was a fairly tame conference. No big battles, no bloodletting - at least not in media or public view - just a party travelling in hope, and willing to see fruitful political change. But the 500 or so delegates know that their talks team labours in the Castle Buildings compound at Stormont. There was great sympathy for the "men and women behind the wire" at Stormont. But an expectation, too, that they must deliver a peace settlement with which the majority of nationalists can live.