Gerry Adams is intent on reaching his target of three seats. Has his day come? Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter, watched the Sinn Féin machine in action
Standing near the bridge in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, on Thursday afternoon, Sinn Féin's leader, Gerry Adams, brought his troops together for a final word before heading out of the Sligo/Leitrim constituency and back to the hustings in Dublin.
"People are very open to what we are saying. They are prepared to give preferences. But we can't take anything for granted. Systematically, you must continue to do what you have been doing," he told them.
Despite the presence of Marian Harkin in the race, Sinn Féin retain hopes, however fleeting, that Councillor Sean McManus can win one of the four seats on offer.
"Remember what happened in Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Fifty three votes made Michelle Gildernew an MP. People there did not dream that we could win. It was only in the final five or six days that they did.
"This is one seat that I can live with if we do lose - if it isn't our fault. It is about the next 16 days. The feedback is coming from everywhere, but we have to win the seat. Take nothing for granted," said Mr Adams.
For months, Sinn Féin has tried to counter predictions that it would win up to 10 seats in the Dáil, conscious that failure to reach such a target would be deemed a failure and an ebbing of any Republican "tide".
Throughout, the ever-cautious Mr Adams has identified just three: Cavan/Monaghan, Kerry North and Dublin South West, where Councillor Sean Crowe came so close last time.
Opinion polls in recent months have cast doubt on the size of Sinn Féin's support, though this week's survey in the Kerryman, tipping Councillor Martin Ferris to top the poll there, has again rattled the main parties.
Up to now, these same parties have comforted themselves with the belief that Sinn Féin will not win seats, regardless of their first-preference tally, because transfers will not come in the later counts.
The latest MRBI poll tends to offer qualified support for that view, though the low second-preference transfer figure on offer from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voters is hardly relevant since their parties run more than two candidates in most places.
Nevertheless, 7 per cent of Labour voters and 9 per cent of those ready to vote for Independents are ready to offer Sinn Féin second preferences - which may yet prove useful in a limited number of places if party candidates are near the finish line.
Walking down the streets of Sligo on Thursday, a number of voters approached to shake hands with Mr Adams, who has near-celebrity status in the eyes of some: "Howya, Gerry. How're things," said one man.
Occasionally, voters politely indicated that their first preferences were going elsewhere, but offered lower transfers. "See, we are getting preferences," pointed out Councillor Chris McManus, the candidate's son.
However, preferences will be needed in both directions. Relations between Mr McManus and Labour's candidate in Sligo, Mr Declan Bree, have long been poisonous.
Keenly remembering past slights, Mr McManus once more vilified Mr Bree last year during an Easter commemoration for running in the 1981 Dáil elections and thereby denying hunger striker Joe McDonnell a seat.
Now, a relative calm based on mutual need has descended. Speaking during a debate on Shannonside Radio on Thursday, the two, if not friendly, were polite.
A similar outbreak of relative public peace has broken out in Kerry North, where Councillor Ferris is competing with former Labour leader and minister for foreign affairs, Mr Dick Spring.
In February, Mr Spring was in the vanguard of critics of Sinn Féin. "They're up to their necks in peddling drugs in other parts of the island and on the other hand they're pretending they're going to save the country from drugs," he declared then.
More recently, however, Mr Spring has been more muted. Still haunted by his 1987 survival by just four votes, he is, no doubt, conscious that Ardfert and Fenit second preferences from Councillor Ferris may yet prove useful.
Firmly believing that a seam of political disaffection is waiting to be mined, Sinn Féin is conscious that much of this could dribble away to the plethora of Independent candidates now running.
Questioned about Ms Harkin by local journalists in Carrick-on-Shannon, Mr Adams was blunt: "People need to exercise their vote very wisely. One person being elected will not make a difference. One person as part of a team will." For over a year, the other parties have cast worried glances in the direction of the colleges and universities, where Sinn Féin is undoubtedly popular - although the scale of that popularity is exaggerated in parts.
On Thursday, Mr Adams, flanked by his coterie, travelled to the Institute of Technology, Sligo, where two dozen, T-shirted Sinn Féin cumann members stood outside to greet him.
Gathering his thoughts and a few "lines" together, Mr Adams made a quick check on who the institute's football team had defeated to win the Sigerson Cup recently. "UCC, in Cork", came the answer quickly.
In a lecture hall, dozens of students watched from the balcony and for hundreds there was standing room only. They were treated to Adams in his role as the visionary, if rather reluctant, politician - although the odd questioner was met with a humorous, if slightly sarcastic, barb.
"I am glad to see such a crowd. The conventional wisdom is that young people are not interested in what is happening on this island, or interested in politics. I would like to talk to you for a short time and take your criticism and advice," he said.
Questioned by one student about alleged links between the IRA and FARC, the left-wing guerilla movement in Colombia, Mr Adams quickly bypassed the topic and brought the subject back to the more comfortable ground of the peace process.
"People compare me to Michael Collins and others. None of them succeeded in doing what we are trying to do. None of them. What we are trying to do is unprecedented," he declared.
Throughout, the Sinn Féin leader concentrated on the usual broad themes: the peace process, better health and welfare services, the safeguarding of rural Ireland, and the fallout from the Nice vote.
As so often before, the presentation lacked detail. The party's full manifesto will not be published until Monday, 10 days behind all of the others.
Promising a rebirth of rural Ireland, for example, Sinn Féin concentrates on easing planning laws to allow more once-off housing, a return to co-ops, and investment in indigenous industry and better public transport.
On the wider economic stage, Sinn Féin's policies promise much without saying clearly who will eventually end up paying the piper - other than, of course, the despised speculator class.
Mr Adams told his Sligo audience that the politics of which he dreams "means that the people must be sovereign, it must be people-centred. The emphasis must be on the 'public' in republican."
Few other politicians would get away with such broad sweeps. Clearly, the party's judgment is that a green-tinged "vision thing" will sway its target audience, who will not care either way about the detail.
Turning to the Sligo/Leitrim candidate, Councillor McManus, whose son, Joseph, was killed in 1992, Mr Adams said: "Republicans have hurt many people. But Republicans too have been hurt." The circumstances of Joseph McManus's death were left unsaid. One of four IRA volunteers, he held an elderly man captive overnight in a house near Belleek on the Fermanagh/Donegal border as they tried to lure an off-duty UDR man to his death.
Employed by Fermanagh District Council, the lance-corporal came to the house in response to a bogus call that a dog was worrying sheep. As his van approached, the IRA opened fire.
Hit three times, the soldier fired back with his personal protection weapon, killing Mr McManus jnr. Reading the funeral oration, Mr Adams said his "sorrow was personal" when news of the death filtered through to West Belfast.
However, the brutal and inglorious details of the Troubles are unwanted by an audience still in primary school when the IRA called its first ceasefire in 1994. For them, the past is truly a foreign country.