The present US ambassador to Ireland, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, and her successor will almost certainly meet each other at the numerous St Patrick's Day functions in Washington over the coming days. But a sure guessing game at the White House and Irish and British embassy functions and the Speaker's lunch on Capitol Hill will be who is the successor?
Is President Clinton ready to announce it, as he did with Mrs Kennedy Smith this time five years ago? It is not to be totally excluded.
Just about everyone who is involved in the guessing game assumes that like the Northern Ireland peace process, JKS, as she is known, is into the final lap of her Dublin posting. This week, on a visit to Capitol Hill, she let it be known for the first time to some members of Congress that she will leave her Dublin post this summer, probably in July.
At the State Department and the White House, it is pointed out that strictly speaking, she should be gone already.
She is probably the only political appointee of President Clinton who has served for five years. As he started into his second term, letters went out to ambassadors who had served more than three years indicating that they could expect to be replaced. Some had already announced their departure, like the late Pamela Harriman from Paris and William Crowe from London.
When news of the letters leaked, some of the conservative British newspapers, never friendly to the Kennedys, trumpeted that Mrs Kennedy Smith was being recalled. This was 13 months ago and she is still alive and well in her Dublin embassy.
For the insiders, the routine letter to the ambassadors was not really meant to apply to Dublin. A Kennedy in the Clinton administration will never be "recalled". She will go in her own time.
That is still the situation. But it makes sense that the conclusion of the peace process would be an appropriate occasion to call it a day and give her successor a decent run for his or her money. President Clinton will be gone this time three years and his successor will also want a new face in Dublin.
The Dublin embassy has always been a political appointment, going usually as a reward to a wealthy supporter of the incoming president. Those who want the prestigious job are expected to make their wishes known discreetly in time to the President so that the White House staff can do the necessary vetting.
No one wants surprises, such as the one which led recently to a former ambassador being dug up from a hallowed grave in Arlington cemetery because he had lied to the State Department about his war record to become ambassador to Switzerland.
It can be tricky for the prospective ambassadors to lobby the White House and Congress while the job they want is still filled. One leading contender for Dublin, the influential Washington lawyer, Paul Quinn, has been embarrassed by the leak of a letter sent to President Clinton signed by 41 Irish-American members of Congress setting out his suitability for the post.
Mr Quinn (63) who is a Democratic party fund-raiser and has long associations with the peace process in Northern Ireland, felt he had to get his credentials in before it is too late. He is convinced the race is already on but lobbying by newspaper headlines was not quite what he intended.
Two other serious contenders have the advantage over Mr Quinn of having the ear of the President. Education Secretary Dick Riley sits in Cabinet doing a job which is especially dear to Mr Clinton, namely, extending educational opportunities to poorer children and raising national standards.
Mr Riley, a charming southern gentleman who is 65, has Co Cavan ancestors and is a former attorney and Governor of South Carolina. He has now told the Irish Voice that concerning Dublin, "to say I am not interested would be wrong". If he is interested he must be seen as the front-runner, assuming the President can take him away from education.
Mark Gearan, the head of the Peace Corps, is only 41 but has valuable experience behind him in the Democratic Party and in the White House where he was director of communications in the early Clinton years. If he is lobbying for Dublin, he is not saying it, but his name is coming up more frequently as Papabile to use the Vatican term.
Tom Donahue, a former head of the powerful AFL-CIO labour federation, now retired from that post, is also interested in being the next US ambassador in Dublin. His successor at the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, has become quite close to President Clinton, so he would presumably put in a word for Mr Donahue.
Paul Quinn has collected impressive Congressional support and may get additional support - after Mrs Kennedy Smith announces her resignation - from her brother Ted, Senator Chris Dodd, George Mitchell and John Hume. But the insiders say that if Dick Riley wants Dublin, he will get it. Asked recently about his intentions, Riley smiled and said: "I love Ireland and I love being Secretary of Education." But which does he love more?