The crunch moment for the Labour-DL merger came with the announcement, during Saturday night's party, that the entertainment would include a poetry reading by Michael D. Higgins.
"Lock the doors," ordered MC Gerry Stembridge, not the only one doubting whether DL's commitment to a united left would stretch this far.
He needn't have worried. The former minister's poem was greeted with rapt attention - uniquely, on a night when the two parties merged so enthusiastically in conversation that most of the entertainers were ignored.
But then they had plenty to talk about. As one of the entertainers put it: "All those new backs out there: you don't know whether to pat them or stab them."
Down on the floor at the Riverside Centre, Dublin, Bernie Malone and Proinsias De Rossa stood almost back-to-back on several occasions, so close they could have been photographed for the joint Euro-election ticket.
The MEP had earlier told the Labour conference that a "cautious nature" made her slow to embrace the merger: and she was certainly slow to embrace Mr De Rossa.
If the new party was to be socialist, however, everybody had to socialise. And Gerry Stem bridge didn't shirk this challenge either, advising the potential partners-in-Europe to exploit the situation by promoting themselves as "a showbiz couple."
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow were the particular models he suggested, causing nervous laughter from an audience fearing bullets over Broadway.
The Malone-De Rossa situation wasn't the only one to cause a frisson. The tendency of Labour politicians to lose their hair prematurely was a running joke. And Derek McDowell must have felt like pulling out a bit more of his when comedian Dara O Briain looked for a volunteer from the audience - "preferably a media-shy person" - and picked Pat Rabbitte.
If McDowell - Labour's finance spokesman - had not already joined the queue at the bar, this might have driven him there. But publicity can be a mixed blessing and when Rabbitte - DL's finance spokesman - was invited to play the part of an eight-year-old on the Late Late toy show, he made a fatal mistake.
Asked, Gay Byrne-style, how many marks out of 10 he would give a certain toy, Rabbitte said "three" and then explained in his best eight-year-old's voice: "I can't count any higher."
Whereupon O' Briain, sharper than the crease in Rabbitte's trousers, shot back: "No finance portfolio for you, so." The joke was greeted by loud laughter (and that was only Derek McDowell).
Elsewhere it was all harmony.
The audience lapped it up when Niall Toibin thanked them for the wedding invitation and promised to be there "for the divorce" as well. A slimmed-down Mary Coughlan helped the fattened-up party celebrate and Mary Stokes added her voice too.
In the speeches, Proinsias looked forward to working under his new leader, while Ruairi looked forward to working under his new president. Meanwhile the Labour and DL supporters merged ever deeper in conversation, discussing a bright new socialist future. One with bread and roses, and poetry too.
