Nearly a thousand Progressive Democrats will gather tonight in Dublin for an anniversary celebration of the party's founding in 1985, writes Mark Hennessy
Twenty years ago, Dessie O'Malley gathered a group of political journalists together on a Saturday morning four days before Christmas to launch a fledgling political party on to the national scene.
He was joined by Mary Harney and Michael McDowell. Not many, in the beginning, gave the enterprise much of a chance. And its epitaph has been written more than a few times since.
Nevertheless, it has been in power for 11 of the last 20 years, and, even in the eyes of its detractors - and it has no shortage of those - it has set the political agenda for much of that time.
Back in 1985, O'Malley, freshly ejected from the ranks of Fianna Fáil, argued the country could emerge from the economic morass of that dark decade.
The original policy draft penned back then by a youthful McDowell, then and now the intellectual driver of the party, has remained remarkably consistent.
The Progressive Democrats should be pro-enterprise and self-reliance; favour deregulation, competition and crush monopolies; and stress real republican values rather than "nationalistic myths".
Though the basic goals are still there today, the tactics used by the Progressive Democrats have been as nakedly self-interested from time to time as those employed by any other party.
In his opening missive, McDowell argued that the PDs, which could have been called the Radical Party, or a host of other options, should be "liberal and pluralist, but not aggressively secularist".
The latter phrase may ring in the ears of some party members this weekend, following the outspoken assault by former minister of state Liz O'Donnell on the Catholic Church in the Dáil this week.
In 2001, O'Donnell was savaged when she entered the row sparked by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's decision to co-host a reception with his then partner, Celia Larkin, to mark Cardinal Desmond Connell's inauguration.
The church, she said, had failed to deal with paedophile priests and should remember its "own issues on public morals before they start giving very vocal advice on the private lives of others".
Her intervention sparked a furious response from arch-Catholics, one of who sent her faeces in a letter, while others wished harm upon herself, her husband and her children.
O'Donnell still bears the scars, though it has to be said that a full-blown attack on the church will not sell badly in the leafy suburbs of Dublin South, particularly from a TD not particularly known for constituency work.
Her reference to "cosy phone calls from All Hallows" has stung the Taoiseach, who has clearly seen it as a personal insult, given that his father worked there for 50 years and that he once lived there.
The speech had not been cleared with Harney, though she knew O'Donnell was going to say something controversial, while other colleagues stopped in their tracks to watch it on Dáil monitors inside Leinster House.
Some of it, particularly the call for an end to all contacts between church and State, went "too far", in the words of one of her own colleagues, though none would say so publicly.
Furthermore, her criticisms of the compensation deal for victims of abuse in residential institutions puts the PDs on dodgy ground, since they were at the Cabinet table when it was passed, even if they were not happy about how it got there.
Nevertheless, O'Donnell has helped to create some "brand definition" for the PDs, which is not a bad thing for a junior coalition partner now eight years in power with Fianna Fáil.
In the Burlington Hotel in Dublin tonight, the PDs quite deliberately will focus on the future, not the past, emphasising, to borrow a phrase from their Coalition partners, that there "is a lot done, more still to do".
In 2002, McDowell changed the tone of the election and saved the PDs' bacon in the process when he ascended that lamppost in Ranelagh with his poster declaring: "Single Party Government? No Thanks".
Next time, the PDs will have to play it differently, but just as cleverly: "You can't fight the last war. If you do that you will lose," one PD official commented.
Instead, the Progressive Democrats will drive home the message that one of the smaller parties, Sinn Féin, the Greens, or themselves, will have to be in power for the next government to be formed.
"The message will be, 'Trust Us'. The Shinners would frighten foreign investors and business to death, while the Greens have some daft policies," said one PD, rehearsing his lines for the next 18 months.
Over the last year or so, the Progressive Democrats have reformed their backroom structure, appointing more staff, and employing regional officers - half of the costs of which are met by the State.
Nevertheless, the party has, so far at least, few new "winnable" candidates on the horizon, while doubts exist that all eight of its current Dáil crop can survive.
Questions about new candidates lead, again and again, to one potential gain, and one only, in the form of Galway county councillor Ciaran Cannon, who will run in Galway East.
Though intent on remaining distinct, the PDs are more comfortable with Fianna Fáil the longer they stay in power, even though rows are frequent - the most recent being the senior Coalition partner's victory in its plans for a new Dublin airport terminal.
The passing of Charlie McCreevy from the Cabinet, who is now happily in the European Commission, has altered the power balance, given that he was nearly a PD in name and was always one in practice.
Nevertheless, McCreevy's departure is probably a blessing for now, since the reforms he had in mind would probably play badly with voters 18 months from an election.
For now, the PDs will raise the champagne glasses, and toast their success. Twenty years on, they have survived, frequently prospering, but their fortunes will always be tossed on the political seas.