Analysis: Belief that it is to become the dominant unionist group infected the DUP conference, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
This wasn't so much the DUP annual conference as the DUP rally, not quite Nuremberg perhaps, but a fiery proclamation that it must be part of the next Northern Ireland Reich.
About 700 delegates jam-packed into the Europa Hotel for proceedings, almost twice as many as attended the Ulster Unionist Party conference in Derry, as Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson and speaker after speaker told us.
"Leadership-vision-commitment; towards a new agreement" was the backdrop clarion call on the huge and eye-catching stage. But that wasn't the real message to David Trimble, the pro-Belfast Agreement parties and the British and Irish governments.
The real message was: be afraid, be very afraid.
The DUP in thunderous terms was saying that the IRA, Sinn Féin, London, Dublin and the Yes parties just might manage to cobble together some form of accommodation by springtime, but the reality is that such is its growing strength it won't work without the DUP.
Only one speaker guardedly touched on that other reality, that Sinn Féin can't be excluded from any new agreement either because of its equally impressive support base. But more of that.
The leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, described the gathering as a watershed in the history of the DUP because after years of battling up the political hill the party now has "some freewheeling before us".
Here was a party supremely confident that, come the next election, it will be the dominant unionist grouping. Judging the mood, fervour, concentration and organisation of the DUP on Saturday, Mr Trimble must know is no idle threat. Saturday may have been a watershed in other ways. Were we witnessing the beginning of a leadership transition from the Paisley fundamentalists to the Robinson pragmatists?
The contrast in the style and substance of the keynote speeches from Dr Paisley and Mr Robinson was striking.
Mr Robinson made only one reference to God and that wasn't even in his script. His speech was about doing the business: thrashing the UUP; savaging David Trimble; denouncing republicans; warning that there will be hell to pay if Assembly elections are postponed beyond May; rallying the troops; and very subtly, very cautiously, advising delegates that loath it as they do nonetheless Sinn Féin is part of the political equation.
The Deity got little rest in Dr Paisley's speech. The Bible was quoted frequently. In an interview with Dr Paisley in Saturday's paper reference was made to a reported comment of his in 1963 that Pope John XXIII would suffer hellfire.
Almost 40 years on there was little or no change. Dr Paisley was accusing Mr Trimble of being a liar and saying that according to the Bible there was no place for such people in the Kingdom of God. As far as Dr Paisley was concerned Mr Trimble has few prospects in this life or the next.
He told the delegates that Catholic "priestly absolution is held out to the doer of every deed of blood in the furtherance of a united Ireland", whereas "Protestantism offers no false pardons to such criminals". And much more gospel hall declamations in similar vein.
There was politics in his comments too, but the curious aspect of Saturday was that the delegates sat on their hands for the fire and brimstone and anti-Catholicism elements of his address. They cheered him loudly and wildly at the end but remained quiet when he flailed about in religious demagoguery mode. In previous years it might have had the delegates whooping.
Dr Paisley's view is that, even contemplating that unspecified "quantum leap" from the IRA, what the two governments are urging is a waste of time. He remarked there was a rumour that the IRA would provide video evidence of it "breaking-up arms" but such action would be meaningless.
Mr Robinson's approach was more sophisticated, and for those who believe that at some stage he might trade there were a few very interesting comments. For instance: "There will be no peace until the IRA is stood down."
"Stood down" mind, which doesn't have the unionist diktat effect of "disbanded". And: "The realities we will face now seem inescapably to include the rise of Sinn Féin/IRA to the dominant position in nationalism. Facing up to that unpalatable fact does not, to any degree, alter how we consider that organisation."
He added: "The reality is that the DUP are opposed to the presence in an executive of the unrepentant representatives of active and armed terrorism. That is an unchanging reality."
It can be dangerous to read too much into such comments considering how virulently anti-republican is the party. Yet, what the current talks are about is implementing the agreement and creating the situation where the IRA, whatever it is, is no longer "active and armed".
Therefore if the IRA does wind down, is the logic of Mr Robinson's comments that the DUP could or would share power with Sinn Féin? Not if the fundamentalist DUP Paisley wing has its way. But if the Robinson pragmatists are on the rise, as just might have been evident on Saturday, there might be some room for Ulster fudge. The next few months could be very interesting.