While the fat lady has yet to sing the final high notes in the opera which saw the Irish Farmers' Association take on the beef barons once again, the organisation is basking in what it sees as yet another victory.
Within its 85,000-strong membership morale is at an all-time high, forged at the bonfires at the barricades which it set up at factory gates to prevent trading.
Dalai Lama-like, they acquired a spiritual leader in exile, Tom Parlon, who dramatically resigned as president last Monday night to prevent the organisation being destroyed. His resignation along with most of his national council over the decision to obey the law of the land gave a clear signal to the troops to throw more logs on the braziers and tighten the stranglehold on the factories.
The feeling was heady indeed. The farmers of Ireland discovered they had, probably for the first time in decades, public sympathy.
The IFA men and women also saw the man described by one farmer as "the uncrowned king, the new Daniel O'Donnell of Ireland" walk out of all-night talks with the beef factories once again, just hours before the High Court withdrew all possible sanctions against them and him.
As the smaller factories, and later the large ones, gave in to the farmers' 90p demand for ordinary grade beef, it seemed, according to one commentator, that the IFA had gone to the bullfight and brought home the bull. The veterinary levy increase of £1.80 which led to the dispute has been removed, the Government has set up a special committee to monitor beef prices and transparency seems to be the order of the day.
There are, however, a few details that may have escaped the people at the barricades and a bemused public who find it difficult to understand what is going on down on the farm. The IFA, with or without its spiritual leader, still has to break the alleged meat industry cartel for good.
The big players - Larry Goodman's AIBP, Dawn Meats and Kepak - may have agreed to pay 90p per pound, but the IFA has no guarantee they will continue to pay this price. These three companies, which control over 60 per cent of the market, have maintained through their organisation that in the end the market will decide the price factories can pay, not the IFA. A number of factory sources indicated yesterday that they will not run their plants at a loss.
And popular though he is, the uncrowned king may have won the battle but he has yet to win the war.
The organisation is aware of a threat from a new-look Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association. It has a new, young leader in Pat O'Rourke and a younger more vibrant executive. It has been doing well in the publicity stakes and has been riding high on IFA successes.
For instance, Mr O'Rourke - who unseated the incumbent ICMSA president, Frank Allen, last November - offered to replace any IFA personnel arrested on pickets with his own people. He also arranged a protest at the Cabinet meeting in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon.
But there are stresses within the IFA at the highest level. Last week when he resigned, it was said that Tom Parlon had created "the Real IFA"; but there is also a new militancy which has created the "Continuity IFA", a group which will not stop.
The militancy of its members, who appeared to be ahead of its leadership at some stages in the dispute, may perhaps be the IFA's greatest problem - that and the distinct possibility that once the industry returns to normal, the price of beef will drop again.