As hundreds of SDLP delegates quaffed Guinness, half-ones of Powers, Paddy and Bushmills (good whiskey-drinkers, these SDLP-types) they sniffed the sweet, intoxicating smell of power. And not before time, they felt.
Unionist annual conferences are day-long affairs. The SDLP does its business over a weekend. That's because for SDLP members the word conference is synonymous with celebration, in good times and bad. And these are good times.
And celebrate is what most of the members did, through Friday night and parts of Saturday and Saturday night and deep into Sunday morning.
Not that they needed an excuse, but this year the party had more reason to party, what with a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and their deputy leader running Northern Ireland, or "the north of Ireland", with David Trimble
On Saturday evening after most of the work was done John Hume wandered around the conference centre in the Canal Court Hotel in Newry, sipping a glass of white wine, chatting to delegates.
"A roving ambassador, that's what he's going to become," said one informed observer, contemplating how much of the future work of the SDLP leader and Nobel laureate will be networking abroad for jobs and political solidarity, in Europe, the United States or Asia.
In terms of running the local show he seemed quite content to move aside for Seamus Mallon. The Deputy First Minister, as the only SDLP member at the moment to hold any administrative power, also looked relaxed and comfortable, as well he might.
As Mr Hume pointed out in his conference speech, for which he received a five-minute standing ovation, this is the first time in the 28-year history of the SDLP aside from the brief Sunningdale experiment that the party has had one member in office in Northern Ireland, and others waiting at the gate.
Enjoy and celebrate the new feeling, was the mood. And if there was still the hurdle of decommissioning to be overcome before everybody could smoothly enter the new political dispensation, well, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, was the response.
Some delegates worked hard, it must be admitted. Brid Rodgers made a strong speech on parades, positing the Belfast Agreement as the template for solving disputes. Mark Durkan spoke up for the health service, and coincidentally Eddie McGrady and Sean Farren both argued that the development of cross-Border bodies would deliver great economic benefits for Ireland.
Assembly members Ms Rodgers and Mr Durkan seem shoo-ins for two of the SDLP's three expected ministerial positions in the new Assembly executive, but it could be a battle between the South Down MP, Mr McGrady, and the North Antrim Assembly member, Mr Farren, for the SDLP's economic portfolio. Which perhaps explains the coincidence of chosen theme.
One of the advertisements in the conference programme featured a shot of John Hume and Bono, arm in arm at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast during their pro-referendum gig, bearing the legend: "Maybe we have found what we are looking for!"