On December 14th about 300 slightly chilly exam students arrived outside the Dail to protest at the continuing teachers' pay dispute. There were no politicians there to meet them, few reporters and no parents.
Apart from a few gardai, the only person there to greet them was Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan.
Fitted out in ASTI placards, the teacher - originally from Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal - warmly welcomed the somewhat bemused pupils and said she was glad to see them taking such a deep interest in the dispute.
She clapped them warmly on the back one by one, but the students appeared to be clueless about who she was. They eventually continued their march up Kildare Street. One remarked, "Who's she?" and his friend replied, "I haven't got a clue."
The students were unaware they were talking to arguably the most crucial personality in the ASTI's pay campaign. The woman whose impassioned stance as ASTI president lit the touchpaper for the current dispute.
A week earlier she was on the same spot, this time wooing more than 10,000 ASTI members from the side of a lorry.
In a speech which even her opponents admitted was oratory at its finest, she castigated TDs and senators for looking for a generous pay rise for themselves and at the same time not backing the ASTI's 30 per cent claim.
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," she roared. The crowd screamed back their approval and another vintage Bernadine performance was chalked up. Some of the other ASTI leaders shifted uncomfortably in their seats. And well they might.
While she is no longer at the head of the union, Ms O'Sullivan remains a type of moral leader for the union's 16,000 members. Nominally, she occupies a middle ranking position as a member of the ASTI standing committee, but her real role is much more fundamental.
With her fiery speeches and unbending defence of the profession, she has become for many ASTI members an unsullied emblematic figure who stands firmly on the principle that teachers' pay has to be improved urgently or the profession will wither away.
Speaking at the weekend meeting, her almost evangelical belief in the teachers' cause was clear. Speaking to reporters, she said the ASTI dispute was not simply a pay campaign, but a "crusade". It was about the whole future of education and teaching.
Ms O'Sullivan, months after stepping down, remains the most crucial figure in the union. She inspires loyalty and dislike in equal measure. But at the moment large swathes of the ASTI regard her as a sort of moral compass guiding them through the various choices which have to be made in the dispute.
They admire her steadfast views and believe she will not lead them astray. Other leading figures in the union, because their job involves negotiating the nitty-gritty details of a resolution with the Government, tend to appear slightly more compromised figures in the eyes of some members.
Ms O'Sullivan did not support the weekend deal, whereas the general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, publicly backed it. Throughout this dispute Ms O'Sullivan's views have been crucial in the outcome of votes at the ASTI's standing committee.
Before Christmas she supported pulling out of the talks because the Government docked the pay of teachers for their work-to-rule.
As she has pointed out in this newspaper before, the ASTI's members are "seasoned forty-somethings and fifty-somethings" who make their own decisions. This is true, but like everyone they make up their minds based on the information available and by listening to their peers and colleagues and Ms O'Sullivan's views carry serious weight in the organisation at the moment.
If this dispute is to be brought to an end, Government representatives are going to have to table something which will satisfy her and those who use her as a guiding light.
Ms O'Sullivan - to the dismay of senior civil servants - has poured scorn on their idea for fixing the ASTI dispute: benchmarking.
As president of the union, she told its annual conference last April this concept (which involves comparing public and private sector pay) was too vague and would not be suitable for processing the 30 per cent claim.
At the union's rally in Kildare Street she warned that teachers would not be railroaded into a "dressed up" form of benchmarking.
In the days preceding that civil servants and the ASTI appeared to be doing just that - setting up a negotiating forum for teachers allied in some way to the benchmarking body.
After her denouncement of this approach officials scurried off again and tried to tweak their plans for a teachers' forum so it was more (if not completely) independent of the benchmarking body.
Ms O'Sullivan does not see herself as blocking the way to a solution, but says a pay rise is the only real way to resolve the logjam or else teaching could become a second grade profession.