Churchill's "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone" continue to loom over the Northern Ireland political landscape despite the cataclysm in the rest of the world. Some - republicans in particular - are still faithful to the integrity of the old quarrel but many others are weary to the point of exhaustion.
At the moment Dublin, London, Washington, and the pro-Belfast Agreement parties are putting the squeeze on Sinn FΘin and the IRA to do something substantial on weapons.
"There isn't a politician in Leinster House who isn't totally p....d off with the Provos. 'Would you ever just get on with it lads, and do the necessary on arms', is their message to the IRA," said one well-placed and emphatic senior Dublin insider yesterday.
He was hardly including Caomhgh∅n ╙ Caolβin, Sinn FΘin's sole TD, in this general observation, but there is little doubt that that is the prevailing mood post-September 11th. And judging by the comments of several senior politicians and officials this weekend this isn't a case of their denouncing the IRA but rather a view that against what the wider world may be facing it is time for a republican reality check.
Mr Gerry Adams and his colleagues have weathered such storms before. He and other senior republicans must now weigh up whether they should brazen out the pressure or convince the IRA leadership that this is the time for a substantial gesture on arms.
The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, restored devolution for another six weeks from midnight on Saturday. "There is a chill wind out there, but the door is open," he said yesterday to republicans. He acknowledged that any IRA movement would be a voluntary act but left no one in any doubt that this was the only way to safeguard politics here.
The British and Irish governments had counselled against Mr David Trimble doing anything that might ease the pressure on republicans. But on Saturday he did just that by threatening to pull his three ministers off the Executive in the next two to three weeks if the Ulster Unionist Party fails with an Assembly motion seeking to expel Sinn FΘin from government.
Dublin and London wished it were otherwise. But it was a sign of the times that yesterday the British and Irish line was that Mr Trimble probably had no alternative considering the demands for even stronger measures from the Donaldson/Burnside wing of Ulster Unionism.
Equally, the two governments are still receptive to the sensitivities of republicans. That was why Dr Reid appeared so annoyed with weekend reports, which cited authoritative security sources, that the IRA is about to decommission two of its dumps.
He appeared to suspect that, as the Sinn FΘin leader would say, this was the "securocrats up to their dirty tricks".
Mr Adams warned on Friday that ultimatums to the IRA were "highly counter-productive". The party chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, was even more vehement yesterday. He accused the British government of appeasing unionism.
"John Reid's singular focus on the issue of silent IRA weapons without reference to the UDA pogrom against Catholics and attacks on Catholic schoolchildren, and all of the other issues that need to be resolved, suggests a British government policy which now appears to be little different from that being pursued by David Trimble and the UUP," added Mr McLaughlin.
Such comments may toughen the resolve of the republican faithful, if they do decide to retreat into themselves and ignore the entreaties for action on weapons. The IRA could refuse to budge in the hope that the current national and international revulsion against paramilitarism and terrorism could shift with, for instance, some US act that saw innocent Afghans killed.
It would be quite a gamble for republicans because the antipathy to Sinn FΘin and the IRA equally could deepen. It might also be a signal that, as peace process cynics contend, the IRA is really engaged in a "long war" strategy.
Sinn FΘin may hold onto its core support if the IRA digs in its heels on arms but it would lose a lot of heavyweight friends and money in the process both here and in the US. Even among republican grassroots there is a growing realisation that, one way or another, this time there is no avoiding the decommissioning issue.
"Sinn FΘin made its electoral gains because of the peace process, not because of the war process," as a senior republican pointed out at the weekend.
Unionist ultimatums have helped republicans get off the hook of arms before, but there is a different mood after the attacks on the World Trade Centre. The argument isn't about arms this time but about how inconsequential it seems when viewed against what is happening in the bigger world.