BENEATH the lacklustre atmosphere of the Sinn Fein Ardfheis lurked a desperate despondency that the republican movement can no longer set the political agenda and is left in the fearsome dilemma of deciding if it should set a military one.

Since it is clear that it does not have the political clout to secure its ambitions or the military clout to defeat its enemies, the overriding question among journalists - and indeed delegates - was whether there would be a full return to the use of armed strategy.

As one delegate put it: "We cannot win the peace and we cannot win the war".

The last IRA convention - a meeting of delegates representing the membership - was held 10 years ago. Well placed republicans suggest that, if another such meeting were to be held tomorrow, it would vote overwhelmingly to return fully to violence.

Even Sinn Fein delegates were saying openly that the political circumstances do not exist to urge the IRA to call another ceasefire.

But this was not a weekend of searing public debate on whither Sinn Fein. It was rather, the soul of moderate speak, where even a reference to the Spanish revolutionary group, ETA, was deleted from a motion commending the organisation and the Basque people "in their on going struggle for national self determination and liberation".

As the cold draught of political isolation once again whispers around the ankles of the party, delegates ensured that their disquiet and confusion at what lies ahead: were not expressed openly.

Word came through on Saturday evening that David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party intended to use the elected forum as a means of testing proposals arising from all party talks.

His words hardened the delegates' view - if such were possible that the election proposals are I merely a means to block progress in all party negotiations.

IT ALL added to the sense of hopelessness that permeated this year's conference in the Ambassador cinema at the top of O'Connell Street, Dublin - and contrasted so sharply with the 1995 event in the Mansion House.

Confronted with their gargantuan difficulty as to how to proceed, and now painfully aware that politics can be slow and sloppy, it is small wonder there was an air of something bordering on depression as delegates again watched the Special Branch watching them.

It was not the fundamental issues of peace and war that injected life into two days of quiet debate. No, it was an amendment on abortion that aroused the most passionate contributions and created a kind of proxy debate on the peace process during which one delegate questioned the political nous of the leadership.

Only one delegate directly queried the leadership's judgment on the peace strategy.

Women prisoners in Maghaberry Prison had tabled a motion calling on the ardfheis to accept a woman's right to choose. The proposal and an amendment from the party's ardchomhairle, that diluted its contents, were both defeated after a debate in which delegates argued that the idea amounted to political suicide - particularly with two by elections coming up - and had the potential to cause serious rank and file disaffection.

Strange that abortion could provide the basis for a split in Sinn Fein. In many respects, it is just like" any other Irish political party.

For party president, Mr Gerry Adams and his colleagues, this was a weekend of reaffirmation in the leadership. They were hailed from the floor for their handling of the peace process (now technically very dead in the minds of republicans) and praised for their persistence in pursuing the peace "strategy".

When he rose to speak on Saturday evening, Mr Adams was treated, to prolonged applause.

They applauded him again loudly when he extended condolences to the family of the IRA man, Edward O'Brien, killed by his own bomb in London, and was a hearty response too when he declared that the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, had to "reach beyond his party political analysis and represent the interest of the Irish nation and he must understand that the Irish nation extends beyond the State which he governs".

Mr Bruton was the butt of much, criticism over the weekend for what Mr Mitchel McLaughlin called his "maladroit response . . . and lack of comprehension of deeply felt nationalist anxieties about the drift of the political process."

Acknowledging the scepticism and suspicion that now permeates republican thinking on the very concept of all party talks, Mr Adams insisted that popular opinion, if mobilised, could provide an effective counter to failure. He strongly signalled that Sinn Fein would take part in elections, insisting the party would defend its mandate. (There is no question, however, of Sinn Fein taking up its seats in the proposed Forum.)

Meanwhile, Martin McGuinness, highly influential member of the Sinn Fein ardchomhairle, identified" a total of five preconditions to talks" - elections, the new Forum, the Mitchell principles, parallel decommissioning and consent. He identified another obstacle - "bad faith, created by the British government" as the greatest problem.

Whatever lies ahead, the weekend presented no difficulties for the Sinn Fein leadership. Delegates, dealt them no blame for the quandary in which they find themselves.

But, one thing is clear; the future of the republican movement rests, not with Sinn Fein, but in the hands of the IRA.