Analysis: The focus of the Sinn Féin leader was on keeping the republican ship sailing smoothly along, and that's tricky when politics is in the doldrums,writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
Gerry Adams and his personal spokesman, Richard McAuley, spent most of last week working on his ardfheis speech on Saturday evening.
Why it took so much effort might seem odd as there was little new in the address, although there was a qualified reiteration that the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement demanded reciprocation from the IRA.
All the literary sweat made sense because when there is so little tangible happening politically, how can there be much to say. The focus was on keeping the republican ship sailing and that's tricky when politics is in the doldrums.
Mr Adams and other republican leaders such as Mr Martin McGuinness and Mr Gerry Kelly generally succeeded in that task. Delegates went home from the weekend ardfheis in the RDS motivated for the challenges ahead, the most immediate of which are the local and European elections in the Republic and the European poll in the North, all in June.
This explained the high exposure for candidates at the conference and the regular appearances at the podium and on the stage of their main European hopefuls, Ms Mary Lou McDonald in Dublin and Ms Bairbre de Brún in Northern Ireland.
References to collusion, the Columbia Three, the perfidy of the Brits, the perceived Dublin connivance in refusing to pressurise London into moving ahead with reforms in areas such as human rights, the Irish language and equality, the name of Michael McDowell - whose "lá has tiochfaidh-ed", according to Mr Adams - and the onward march of republicanism invigorated the faithful.
And Mr Adams spelt it out clearly that he would take no lectures from anybody. Rather the focus in the elections in the Republic will be to lecture politicians about how they have corrupted Southern society.
Yet, listening to the Sinn Féin president and Martin McGuinness and divining the mood of republicans, it is apparent that this was a holding operation until the real talks business starts, most likely in the autumn - hopefully the autumn of this year.
Mr Adams, in one line in his speech, uttered a truth that must drive his opponents to despair. "Efforts to put Sinn Féin under pressure are a waste of time," he said.
"I state that as a fact, plainly and simply, not through any wish to be macho," Mr Adams humbly added.
Even so, the governments are going to pick up the pressure on Sinn Féin and the IRA in the coming days, but they would need to be pretty serious if that is to work.
Michael McDowell - now there was a name that evoked loud responses at the conference - could complain about the indivisible links between Sinn Féin and the IRA, an organisation responsible for almost half of the killings of the Troubles.
The Taoiseach and Mr McDowell and PSNI chief Hugh Orde and the other political leaders could protest about the beating inflicted allegedly by the IRA on republican dissident Bobby Tohill over a week ago. But the Sinn Féin president is absolutely on the button: playing the moral card against Sinn Féin is a waste of time.
It stirs the republican sense of victimhood and doesn't detract from the fact that nationalists in the North are convinced republicans are wedded to peace.
It's equally unlikely, were an Irish Times poll conducted now, that the picture of the 90 stitches in Bobby Tohill's face would alter the opinion in the Republic of Gerry Adams as the most popular politician in the land.
One of the reasons there was little fresh in his speech is, as Mr Adams himself said, politics in Northern Ireland is "static". Why shift from the general to the specific when it's too early in this latest negotiating game to show the republican hand?
When Sinn Féin gets a clearer picture of whether the DUP is truly up for sharing power with republicans is when the next big push in the peace process will happen. That moment will take months, and heaven help us, possibly a year or more to arrive.
In the meantime the challenge is to prevent the Tohill incident causing lengthy stalemate. Mr Adams spelt out that Sinn Féin was prepared to explore the DUP's position and respected its mandate and that equally the DUP "must recognise and respect" Sinn Féin's. Mr Adams created some potential for future movement by repeating that, with everybody playing their part, the IRA could respond. "There can be no doubt if the two governments apply themselves to acts of completion of the Good Friday agreement then others must do likewise," he said.
"In fact the IRA leadership clearly put its position on the public record in May last year when it said that the full and irreversible implementation of the agreement and other commitments will provide a context in which it can proceed to definitively set aside arms to further its political objectives."
That was the most positive comment this weekend on how peace process politics could be jolted into life. But again it was in the realm of the qualified and the general rather than the specific. It doesn't tell us anything about whether the deadlock can be broken and that's because right now there's nothing much to tell.