The expected imminent outbreak of hostilities in the east has led to the main party conferences in Britain - the great annual seaside gatherings of the Labour and Tory faithful - being severely curtailed. Labour will meet in Brighton next week from just Monday night to Wednesday lunchtime and the following week, the Conservative Conference in Blackpool is also truncated.
Everything at both events will be dominated by terrorism - past and future - and reprisal. Ireland, always peripheral, has been squeezed into a few fringe meetings.
None of this however has stopped our new ambassador to London, Daith∅ ╙ Ceallaigh, from stamping his mark on both occasions. On Monday, he hosts a dinner for the Northern Secretary John Reid, and the following night, there's the usual jolly embassy party at which several cabinet ministers usually appear. On Wednesday morning, the Belfast Telegraph sponsors the Ulster Fry breakfast which is appreciated by many. And in Blackpool, ╙ Ceallaigh gives a lunch for the Tory front bench.
The new Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who - despite having an Irish born mother (Pamela Summers was a ballet dancer from Cork and a Catholic) - has shown little interest in Ireland, and will be closely watched by all. Again terrorism will dominate. But he is in his honeymoon period. So much so in fact, that the memoirs of his father, Group Capt William "Smithy" Duncan Smith's Spitfire Into Battle, are being republished. He is credited with shooting down 19 enemy aircraft. Former northern secretary Merlyn Rees, one of his pilots, is quoted as saying "Smithy" ruled them "with a light rein and allowed us to amuse ourselves with the odd drink and a party in Provence".