Adams ushers Kofi into 'oppressed by Brits' club Frank McNally

When Gerry Adams told delegates that republicans were "in a far better place than we were 10 years ago", he wasn't necessarily referring to the RDS. But he could have been.

While it would still be an exaggeration to say that the Shinners fit right in at the Royal Dublin Society, their success is such that they certainly wouldn't fit in the places they were using a decade ago.

And only a venue in the middle of Dublin's embassy quarter could do justice to the party's ever-growing grasp of diplomacy.

For example, the ardfheis passed a motion commending Sinn Féin's "sub-committee on unionist outreach", which sounds like an education project for the underprivileged, but forms part of a commitment to cross-community bridge-building.

The approach to Ian Paisley's DUP may stop short of courtship, but Sinn Féin is at least careful not to be impolite to the old-style preacher from north Antrim.

In fact, the only bête noir the party seems to have currently is an old-style preacher from south Dublin.

Not even a weekend in the heart of his constituency could soften attitudes to Michael McDowell, and another outreach project is urgently needed here.

In the meantime, the insults are flying. The discovery of Department of Justice documents in an illegal dump in Tyrone last week was seized upon so gleefully by one speaker that it sounded like the Minister had driven the lorry up there himself. Meanwhile, Gerry Adams needed both national languages for a put-down worthy of the PD man, declaring: "His lá has tiocfaidh-ed".

Despite the latest crisis in the peace process, the mood of the ardfheis bordered on smug. Mr Adams didn't refer to the Tohill kidnap, but he happily seized on another recent controversy as proof of double-dealing by the enemy. "Just ask Kofi Annan," he said, gathering the UN secretary general into the global family of those who have been oppressed by the Brits. Meanwhile, refusing to respond in kind to the party's critics (with one honourable exception), he preferred to concentrate on Sinn Féin's own agenda, "because that's the agenda they're all reacting to".

The agenda for the weekend was liable to provoke much reaction, even from the Minister for Justice. A motion from the Munster youth branch called on the Government to promote and protect "skateboarding culture" ("only our skateboards run free", muttered the cynics).

The ardfheis also called for a ban on the use of styrofoam containers with fast-food.

But the motions weren't all as controversial as those.

The leadership address was equally uncontentious. There was a telling moment when the party president sought and received an ovation for the retiring John Hume, who could have written most of the speech.

And still unused to having his address televised live, Mr Adams had to slow down dramatically half-way through.

But that was a minor hitch in a slick event, at the end of which the leader went around and shook hands with everybody on the rostrum, like a priest at a wedding offering the sign of peace to the relatives.