The clouds of despair have lifted from the shoulders of Fianna Fáil judging by the upbeat aggression displayed at the ardfheis, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent.
Last October Fianna Fáil delegates gathered in the unusual surroundings of the National Entertainment Centre in the Gleneagles Hotel in Killarney, Co Kerry, quietly nervous and apprehensive about the local elections.
The contrast with last weekend in the sprawling Citywest Hotel on the outskirts of Dublin could not have been greater, where delegates happily cheered the party's top table.
Much has changed since Killarney, delegates believe: a public that had been in cantankerous temper for 18 months and more as it was reluctantly weaned off the excesses of the Celtic Tiger has mellowed significantly.
Inflation has dropped, tax returns are up, spending figures are within target, road and rail projects are five months closer to completion.
Because of all of this, Fianna Fáil has convinced itself that it has turned the corner in the opinion polls, even if its figures are just barely up on historic lows.
Nevertheless, they are still better than almost anything the party has received since its fortunes went into free-fall in the months after the 2002 general election.
Despite occasional flurries, Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens have not yet coalesced into a credible coalition alternative in the minds of the voters, the party faithful believes.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil's actions have become nakedly opportunistic, as shown by decentralisation and rural planning relaxations. Everything is focused on votes.
Fianna Fáil is now the party that says "Yes".
"We have become much more political in the last few months. And we have stopped making the kind of mistakes that we were making," said one contented Cabinet Minister.
Two core messages stand out from the ardfheis. Firstly, Fianna Fáil recognises Sinn Féin to be a growing threat on the political landscape of the Republic.
Secondly, Fianna Fáil's focus groups have highlighted the existence of a greater sense of nationalism amongst the voters, particularly the young.
Pointing to the Tricolour, Martin Cullen passionately, if contradictorily, declared: "It doesn't belong to one party. It belongs to the Irish people. It belongs to Fianna Fáil."
The seemingly casual references to Ireland's rugby victory over England at Twickenham were anything but accidental. It's cool to kick the English, as long as it is on a playing field.
Throughout the ardfheis, ministers lined up to launch a barrage of invective against Sinn Féin - even the Taoiseach joined in, though in more restrained terms.
Sinn Féin had turned the Border counties into "an economic wasteland", said Dermot Ahern. It fought "with a ballot box in one hand and a cudgel in the other," said John O'Donoghue.
Oddly, ministers accept that they were told to push decentralisation and planning at every opportunity, but they deny that the Sinn Féin attacks were equally co-ordinated.
Accidentally, or deliberately, they may have ended up emphasising Sinn Féin's challenge too much, even if it now stands at 12 per cent nationally in the polls, and 15 per cent in Dublin.
The last Irish Times TNS/mrbi opinion poll surprised Fianna Fáil, but only because its own privately conducted research had shown Sinn Féin to be even higher.
"We can invite them into the sitting room like the SDLP did and wait to be gobbled up. Or we can take them on before they get any bigger," said one party strategist.
In particular, party strategists noted the outcome of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections last November when Sinn Féin eclipsed the SDLP.
"That wasn't the most interesting thing. The key bit was that SF managed to take out the SDLP in middle-class nationalist areas," one party source commented.
Fianna Fáil privately acknowledges that its own hold on working class voters could be affected by a rise in Sinn Féin support, not just the vote enjoyed up to now by Labour.
"There is a vote out there that could fall to Sinn Féin unless people are told what they are dealing with here, the IRA, the crime, the vigilantism," said one party adviser.
The emphasis on Sinn Féin may explain why the Taoiseach decided to focus last week on Mr Gerry Adams's membership of the IRA.
In some ways, however, the targeting of Sinn Féin is little more than the political equivalent of limbering up in the dressing rooms before the election whistle is blown.
Every party needs an enemy to rally its troops.
"You have to fire up people. Attacking Fine Gael doesn't cut it right now. What can you say about them? That they are nice people, but useless?" said one Cabinet Minister scathingly.
Nevertheless, competitors should be wary of promoting the brand name of an enemy, particularly one that has shown itself adept at turning events to its advantage.
Some in Fianna Fáil believe that it has been forced to treat Sinn Féin "too softly for too long", given the need to keep the party on side in the peace process.
"Don't ignore the fact that some of our guys get nauseous every time they hear Sinn Féin going on about our morals and political ethics when they have baseball bats," said one party figure.
Judging by the cheers that raised the rafters in the conference hall, Fianna Fáil has struck a deep chord on rural planning, despite the deep misgivings of opponents.
Indeed, the issue is so central to the party's fortunes in rural constituencies that some party councillors fear that the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, may have gone too far.
Dublin 4-types should not tell decent country people how to live, Ministers declared, to cheers from the floor. Equally, decentralisation opponents were derided as elitists.
Despite Mr Cullen's declarations that he has not declared "open season" on the countryside, party delegates clearly want to hear only about planning permissions granted, not refused.
"His guidelines won't change the basic rules. You could find that many planning applications will still be ruled out. Then, all hell will break loose," warned one councillor.
If delivered by Albert Reynolds's Fianna Fáil in the early 1990s, the two messages would have been taken as the cast iron proof that the party's "Country and Western" wing was in the ascendant.
Delivered by Fianna Fáil under Bertie Ahern, however, the themes are vote winners in rural Ireland and will not have made sufficient progress by June to damage the party's Dublin vote.
Most Dublin residents, in any event, are but one step from a country parish.
"If they think about it, urban voters are not likely to begrudge their home area a State office," one politician contended.
Though delegates returned home yesterday in fighting mood for the battle ahead over the next 14 weeks, the Taoiseach has already conceded that local authority seats will be lost.
The losses must be limited unless the Government's fortunes are to avoid going into another summer nosedive. Fianna Fáil can safely bleed a little, but not too much.