Ardfheis sketch: The 67th Fianna Fáil ardfheis was a hard hat area. The tone was set by site foreman Séamus Brennan, who portrayed contemporary Ireland as a giant construction project. And it was reinforced by his project manager, Bert the Builder, who warned that there was a lot of hard work ahead if the five-year contract was to be completed on time.
The ardfheis slogan - "working, building, leading" - reflected a party that had donned its overalls and was handing out shovels. There was no joy for those facing European and local elections, who might have liked to add "canvassing" to the slogan's list of present participles. The message from Bert the Builder was: "Can we fix it? Yes, we can. (But not before next June!)"
The workmanlike mood of the ardfheis contrasted starkly with its surroundings, in the home of Ireland's leisure industry. If you believed the speeches, the party was far too busy for admiring scenery.
In fact, in his list of ongoing infrastructural projects, Mr Brennan stopped just short of promising to fill in the Gap of Dunloe.
But the uneasy relationship was mutual. Killarney accepted the honour of hosting the first ardfheis outside Dublin with mixed grace. Fianna Fáil might be the republican party, but this was the kingdom, and the visitors were mere subjects here.
Signs in pub windows threatened civil disobedience against the smoking ban. A local music shop welcomed FF delegates with the advertisement "fiddles of all kinds available".
Meanwhile, as the jaunting cars rattled on the road outside, the evocative smell of horse manure was a constant warning to speakers who overdid the rhetoric.
The Minister for Finance needed the warning more than most. In a well-worn image, he characterised the Irish economy as a ship, which had "steamed ahead" under Fianna Fáil but was now in "choppier waters". The vessel was still "ahead of most of the fleet" but it would have to "chart a course" to avoid "running aground"etc.
Suffice it to say that the rats were deserting a sinking metaphor before Cap'n Birdseye finally got to the point, which was that there'd be no giveaways of fishfingers in this year's Budget.
He might need the consolation come Budget time, but one of the clear winners at the ardfheis was Micheál Martin, whose smoking ban was warmly endorsed and provoked the most spontaneous applause in the Taoiseach's speech. Indeed, Mr Ahern was emboldened to forge ahead with the new puritanism, speaking of the need for Irish people to drink responsibly, and promising plastic bag-style levies on takeways and chewing gum.
Fortunately, none of this affected delegates at the post-conference party, where the "working, leading, building" slogan was temporarily dropped in favour of "Smoking, Drinking, Hard living".
But this is a tradition for construction site workers, and after they'd hung their hard hats up for the day, McAlpine's Fuseliers were understandably thirsty.
For all the problems facing him, there was no evidence in Killarney of the Taoiseach's support waning.
True, the post-speech huddle for the RTÉ cameras was less intense than in previous years. And when, in a break with tradition, Donie Cassidy failed to make it into the picture, there was short-lived speculation of a plot against the leadership until we noticed that the smaller stage only allowed for front-benchers (and special guest Paidi Ó Sé).
Nevertheless these are, as successive speakers said, challenging times and, outside of the bars, this was a sober conference. Martin Cullen described Fianna Fáil as a party of "imagination, married with common sense". An apt enough summary, but also, after six years in power, an ominous one, as the organisation returns from Kerry, facing next summer's elections and the seven-year itch.