Clonmel illustrates the challenges facing the next Labour leadership, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter.
James Connolly and James Larkin founded the Labour Party in the high-arched chamber of Clonmel Town Hall as "the political instrument" of the working class.
In 1962, 6,500 people marched through the town's streets to mark the party's 50th anniversary, following the unveiling of a plaque in the Town Hall.
Today, however, Labour has no representative on Clonmel Corporation. Equally, it is without a voice in the Dáil from the Tipperary South constituency.
Last Saturday the candidates for the party's leadership and deputy leadership came to the South Tipperary town to offer their vision to party members from throughout the region.
Clearly, the grassroots have been left disillusioned by the fall from political grace that has followed the Spring Tide in the 1992 general election campaign.
Although one of the quietest of the series of meetings with the grassroots that have taken place over recent weeks, delegates were still quick to voice their grumbles.
"Ordinary members have found it very difficult to get their point of view across to the leadership, views that might have been against the perceived wisdom," complained Mr John Ryan.
"If we had had any of the candidates that we have now over the last four years this party would not be in the rag order that it is," he added, to supportive murmurs from the 100 delegates.
For most of them, Labour's future decision about coalition - particularly about any future alliance with Fianna Fáil - will be the rock on which they stand, or fall.
Brother of the legendary Limerick East TD, Jim, Mr Joe Kemmy was quick to focus on the outright refusal of most of the candidates to consider Fianna Fáil now.
"If they are so against it, why did they not say this in Cork at the national conference when this party was almost railroaded to destruction?" he asked.
A candidate for the deputy leadership, Ms Joan Burton, stood by her past conduct, saying she had frequently told the party's current leader, Mr Ruairí Quinn, that he had chosen the wrong road.
"In the first meeting after the election, he paid me the tribute of saying that I had said to his face that it was wrong. But I accepted the democratic decision," she said.
However, Mr Brendan Howlin, one of the leadership candidates, warned that Labour should not set hurdles that would automatically block the party from power.
"People have ruled out Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin. We have to have 84 seats on that basis. I want to be involved in shaping Ireland, not in a debating society," said the Wexford TD.
Conscious that the desire of some for a clean break with the past could scupper his own hopes, Mr Howlin, currently Labour's deputy leader, was in no mood to throw away the last decade.
"I don't believe that we lack passion. What we have to do is expose that passion to enough people. We have to speak with a voice that will be believed, as Dick Spring did."
Seizing upon Independent Newspapers' decision to oppose him, Mr Howlin said: "If the Sunday Independent doesn't want me, and I have the antipathy of the Tony O'Reillys of this world, I am proud of that."
However, one of his competitors, the Dublin North West TD, Ms Róisín Shortall, was prepared to offer guarantees: Labour should stay out of any alliance until it has 40 seats.
"We need to have the guts to stay out of government the next time. Every single time we have gone into coalition we have come out damaged, with fewer seats," she said.
"There is no point in Labour continuing to do that. I want Labour to be a real alternative, and not a lap dog, so that we can come out of government with our heads held high."
Before the last election the Dublin South West TD, Mr Pat Rabbitte,uled himself out of a cabinet alongside Fianna Fáil in a move that has offered benefits to him since.
"We have made mistakes," he said. "We made very serious errors in 1997. If the party had been in office for the boom, a boom that we helped to create, the country might be different, particularly in its attitude towards us.
"We compounded that error in the last election by giving the impression that we were prepared to do business with anybody. It is very well to say that we had an independent position, but the public did not believe us."
Unlike some, Mr Rabbitte was not prepared to accept that all of Labour's woes lie in poor communication of its message to an increasingly fragmented media and electorate.
"I don't agree that we have wonderful policies on everything. We have wonderful values. It is Labour's values that will endure. But some of our policies are not all that they are cracked up to be.
"For instance, we are opposed to landfill, opposed to incineration, opposed to service charges. What are we for?" he asked delegates, many of whom oppose plans to build an incinerator just miles from Clonmel.
For the Dún Laoghaire TD, Mr Éamon Gilmore, Labour spends too much time concentrating on with whom it will go into coalition or not, rather than on growing itself.
"I think that people want an alternative to right-wing government. People have been turned off by tribunals. When they look around they will not be inspired by Fine Gael," he said.
"There is a much bigger audience for our message than we think.
"If we get it out properly, the issue of who we go into government with will not arise. People will turn to us, not away from us".
In particular, the next leadership will be expected to rebuild links with trade-union members, ties that have been left to wither in many parts on the country.
"We should identify the shop stewards and recruit them and then get them to identify other members. We have to reassert ourselves as the voice of working people," declared Mr Gilmore, echoing the views of others.
Running his constituency operation from SIPTU's Gorey office, Mr Howlin said: "We need more trade unionists as members. Trade unionists don't vote for us."
However, Labour is not alone in not representing workers. For Róisín Shortall, trade union leaders have become "part of the Establishment in this country". "They will pay a price for that," she said.
Although the leadership campaign is publicly polite, there are undercurrents that may well course for long after the result of the one-member-one-vote election is over on October 25th.
Posing a question to the Westmeath TD, Mr Willie Penrose, Mr Eugene Carroll asked: "I know that you are a practising barrister and agricultural consultant. Will you be a full-time deputy leader?"
Clearly irked, Mr Penrose pointed to the success of Labour in Westmeath and the work he has done to give an agricultural leg to Labour's overly urban policies.
Pointing up the differences between herself and Mr Penrose, the Wicklow TD, Ms Liz McManus, said: "I don't agree with Willie. I think you have to be a full-time deputy leader. I think you have to be a full-time TD as well.
"Nothing has been as hard as raising four children. Everything that I have done since has been a doddle as far as I am concerned. If we are to go forward this will require major commitment," she said.