It was more like Croke Park on Leinster Final day than a Fine Gael Ardfheis.
The sunshine was borrowed from mid-summer. So was the Artane Boys Band, which performed the warm-up for the main event, marching past the Hogan (TD Phil, who introduced them) as they took the stage before Enda Kenny's speech. Outside, the Euro campaign bus of Avril Doyle, representing Wexford, went bumper to bumper with the Maireád McGuinness jeep, from Louth: the air crackling with tension between the rival groups of supporters, despite a surface appearance of bonhomie.
The mood of the occasion was as determinedly upbeat as the Artane band's tunes. "The message I'm hearing from everyone is that we're on the way back," said Nora Owen, glad-handing delegates at the entrance to the main hall. "Not us personally," quipped Mary Banotti, the veteran MEP, who is about to join her sister in retirement from public life: "We're on our way out. But Fine Gael is back. The post-election tristesse is over".
As one era ended, Banotti declared herself "gobsmacked" by the youthfulness of delegates at the ardfheis. And Owen, whose personal tristesse was the defining image of the 2002 general election, claimed that since the devastation of that result, the party had been re-energized by new, young candidates, especially in Dublin. "The target is just to get some of the new people elected."
One of the new people, Ranelagh businessman Brian Gillen, who beat party elder Frances Fitzgerald to the nomination for the locals, put his neck on the block. "We need 25 per cent of the vote in the locals. We got 28 last time, but 25 now would be enough to stop people writing our epitaph. And we need to hold the European seat in Dublin. That's absolutely crucial - everybody knows Fine Gael in Dublin is badly rattled. But I think Gay Mitchell can do the job for us."
He was persuaded into politics by the dying Jim Mitchell - another devout catholic. But he says Fine Gael is still "not a great brand-name" in Dublin, and has much work to do. "Fine Gael used to be a bit holier-than-thou. It had a vision - I won't say a 'vision, with purpose' [he grins, ruefully] but it wasn't very good on the ground."
Amid all the sunshine at Citywest, a rainbow could also be seen. Enda Kenny's praise for the 1994-97 coalition - "in which myself and Pat Rabbitte worked closely" - drew cheers, as did mention of the current voting pact with Labour and the Greens. Dublin City Cllr Gerry Breen believed the co-operation between the three parties has given "solidity" to Kenny's leadership, and that despite the media's negativity, the Mayo man "is not attracting the opprobrium that Michael Noonan - unfairly, I think - suffered".
"There's an arrogance about this Government that's got up people's noses, and the fact that they're facing a drubbing explains the timing of the citizenship referendum."
To neutrals, the ardfheis appeared to climax 30 minutes too early. After the Artane Boys, speeches from Richard Bruton and Simon Coveney - both of them shedding their normally mild-mannered personalities - turned up the volume, and the crowd responded like a congregation of southern Baptists. But the party leader's address was noticeably quieter than the warm-up, and in the overheated hall, the audience seemed becalmed.
