In the grand ballroom of Belfast's Ramada hotel, a "resurrection" was taking place to the strains of There will always be an Ulster.
In front of a red, white and blue backdrop, 500 members of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) gathered at their annual conference to send a message to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This was, they said, the "great revival" of a once despairing people, betrayed by the Good Friday agreement.
Ian Paisley, 77, now the euphoric leader of the biggest party in Northern Ireland, took to the podium in his shirt-sleeves. Less than a week since Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, vowed that they had a "road-map" to restore devolution to Northern Ireland by the autumn, the most important man in Ulster politics delivered his reply.
"This is war, war waged in every sphere!" he boomed. "Every evil force is harnessed to the chariot of vilest treachery and diabolical deception."
It was a vintage speech from the veteran hardliner. "Monsters of blood ... murder, mayhem and treachery" and a vow to "de-moustache and de-beard" the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams.
Once the stuff of Blair's nightmares, Paisley now holds the key to a restoration of the Northern Ireland political process. His message was resolute. The prime minister was a liar and traitor unless he "smashed" the IRA once and for all, using force if necessary. The DUP would negotiate with Sinn Fein, the largest nationalist party, only when the IRA had been totally dismantled and handed in all guns. There would be no half-way house. "If Mr Blair is going to lie again to the people of Ulster, he will reap what he sows," he said.
He told the BBC he wanted to be prime minister of Northern Ireland without a nationalist deputy. This would mean discarding the power-sharing provisions of the Good Friday agreement and Adams was quick to denounce him as coming from "another era."
The DUP's first party conference since it took the lead in November's assembly elections was a combination of triumphalism and image management. In a church-like atmosphere, every speech bore a reference to God. But there were also gags about Britney Spears and David Beckham's marital strife.
This was the new friendly face of the DUP, careful to appeal to middle unionism and expand its powerbase. In a novel move, Patrick Yu, the executive director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, was invited on to the platform to deliver an impassioned speech about ending racism and homophobia in Northern Ireland.
The DUP had recently been lambasted over alleged homophobic comments at council meetings. From the floor, members voted unanimously to condemn racist attacks.
High on the agenda was the party's plan to decimate David Trimble's Ulster Unionists at the next Westminster elections.
On stalls outside the conference room, framed pictures of Princess Diana, and King Billy key-rings were selling well to help fund the campaign. The party claimed it was gaining 100 new members a month. One farmer from West Tyrone who had bought five red, white and blue DUP chocolate bars, said the mood was "upbeat, absolutely excellent."
The DUP's deputy leader and chief strategist, Peter Robinson, who many in London would like to see as a future deal-maker, said that although the DUP was "not for turning," it would have to face the reality of the political landscape. In a speech peppered with gags about TV shows and Arnold Schwarzenegger, he stated that some of Trimble's concessions in the peace process "could not be undone ...
"We cannot chart our course from where we would like unionism to be placed," he said. "We have to deal with the landscape as the Ulster Unionist party have left it."
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