Only for the fact that they are teetotallers, it wouldn't have been surprising to see DUP delegates crack open the champagne at their annual conference in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, on Saturday. Around 400 party activists, including many women and young people, attended.
While nothing stronger than orange juice was downed, the DUP was certainly celebrating. It's all due to the South Antrim by-election in September when the party won a previously safe Ulster Unionist seat. The DUP believes this can be repeated in other constituencies in next year's Westminster election. The talk centred on how many new seats would be secured. The party secretary, Nigel Dodds, was tipped as a sure thing in North Belfast. Many delegates fancied Iris Robinson to topple the UUP deputy leader, John Taylor, in Strangford. East Derry and East Antrim were also on the hit list. But the jewel in the crown, delegates thought, would be unseating David Trimble in Upper Bann. The DUP reckons such sweeping electoral success would destroy both the UUP leader and the Belfast Agreement.
In his speech, Mr Dodds stressed the election's importance: "Never will ballots be more precious. The string of DUP victories in council by-elections, the great victory in South Antrim - these have already rocked the political establishment to the core. Next year we must deliver the knock-out blow."
With the UUP deeply divided over decommissioning, North-South Ministerial Council meetings in disarray, Sinn Fein mounting a legal challenge, and still no Provisional IRA arms handed over, the DUP knows the agreement is in trouble.
Assembly member Sammy Wilson brought the house down: "We are still told the merits of the Good Friday agreement. We must be `GFA-positive'. It sounds like a disease to me. In Trimble's case, it has developed into full-blown surrender.
"It came about through casual association with terrorists, lying prime ministers and philandering presidents. How to avoid it? Just say `No'."
The DUP has always accused UUP leaders of treachery, but it believes Mr Trimble has gone much further than his predecessors. Dr Paisley saw it as a battle between good and evil: "David Trimble, I indict you. In the name of Ulster's honest dead, I indict you. In the name of the anguished bereaved, I indict you. In the name of those who trusted you and discovered, after the referendum, your hellish treachery, I indict you.
"David Trimble, in God's name go before you bring any more sacrifice, sorrow and shame to the people of this province."
He received a standing ovation and rousing choruses of "Paisley is our leader/We shall not be moved!" for that.
The DUP believes Mr Trimble is dangerously out of touch with the unionist grassroots. Pointing to the First Minister's wellknown love of Elvis, the DUP deputy leader, Peter Robinson, asked what the difference was between Mr Trimble and the dead rock star.
"One of them has been seen twice on the streets of Portadown since the signing of the Belfast Agreement. The other is leader of the Ulster Unionist Party," he said to waves of laughter.
Some observers believed the DUP's decision to accept ministerial posts at Stormont, while refusing to attend cabinet meetings and continuing to oppose the agreement, would backfire, with ordinary unionists viewing it as hypocritical.
But no dissatisfaction was voiced by delegates, and the South Antrim by-election result suggests voters are not concerned. Mr Dodds strongly defended the policy: "The unionist community aren't boycotters. We tried a boycott policy with the councils after the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement and it didn't work. "If we weren't at Stormont, keeping an eye on Trimble, he would be selling out even more. If we didn't take our cabinet seats, they would go to Alliance and the UUP. Our voters wouldn't want that."
It has also been suggested that, at heart, the DUP really doesn't want to wreck the agreement because, despite its protests, it enjoys Stormont too much. Five minutes at the party conference destroyed that fiction.
While in principle it supports the idea of local politicians wielding more power, the DUP clearly believes sharing the job with Sinn Fein is too high a price. It sees itself in a life-and-death struggle to save Ulster. Quoting Eisenhower, Mr Robinson said: "A soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."
At lunchtime, the troops' spirits were buoyed by a homemade video of The Battle of South Antrim. It featured the jubilant DUP candidate, the Rev William McCrea, and the dejected UUP one, David Burnside. "South Antrim today, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the world tomorrow!" joked Assembly member Jim Wells.