The late John Healy would have enjoyed the irony of it all. The first Fianna Fail Cabinet meeting out of Dublin, and where do they go but down to James Dillon's parlour in Ballaghaderreen with the big portrait of James casting a quizzical eye over their deliberations. What would James have made of it all, as the woman from Ballaghaderreen asked on the radio during the week. What indeed?
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but Drapier suspects the idea of an itinerant cabinet taking its wares from one region to another will prove more trouble than it is worth.
In Dublin, the meetings are a matter of routine, rarely bothered by protests or fuss; down the country is a different matter.
It eats into ministers' time and attracts protesters like bees to a jam jar and, as Bertie Ahern now knows, there is never any such thing as a quiet time. Some issue or other will always be on the boil. The era of a quiet time in politics, when whole months could go by without a crisis, is well and truly in the past.
One aspect of Wednesday's meeting intrigued Drapier. Mary O'Rourke emerged before the end of the meeting to give Sean O'Rourke an account of what was going on, the issues being raised and her own stand on some of them. It was harmless enough and maybe a step forward in open government.
Drapier's question is whether this is a precedent. Will ministers take to the airwaves after, or during, future meetings to give a version of what is happening or was this just a one-off, a Ballaghaderreen bonus, with a return to the normal strict rules of cabinet confidentiality once back in Dublin?
To nobody's great surprise, yesterday's Irish Times poll confirmed what most of us know - there is very little political shifting or movement going on among the voters; nobody is exciting them and most are deeply disengaged. We are still in the midterm trough and it will take the imminence of an election to focus people's minds. In other words, it's all there to play for, and that goes for all parties.
All options remain open. The public is not hostile, but it is bored and busy and will get around to making up its mind in its own good time. The only certainty from yesterday's figures is that no one could take a gamble on them. It's steady as she goes - or at least as steady as can be kept. The hostility to the Budget still remains but the political damage is slight enough.
The Finance Bill will test Charlie McCreevy's ability to make changes without appearing to cave in. Charlie may be stubborn, but he is no fool and has no intention of writing his own political obituary. He knows he was the fall guy for the post-Budget fallout, but he knows too that an increasing number of his colleagues resent the way he was hung out to dry and, even if they think he was unwise, admire his guts and his straightness.
All of which brings us to the farmers. It is only a few weeks since one of Drapier's colleagues predicted a quiet session ahead for all of us. No big issues on the horizon apart from the Budget mess which, he predicted, would be sorted out, but that apart, he saw no lurking threats. The tribunals have also gone so quiet and technical that few people pay much attention to them any more.
But as Drapier has often said, the quiet time is the time to be most wary. His friends in Dublin Castle tell him to expect some real tribunal fireworks once we get into February.
Again we will see, but nobody expected the farming crisis to erupt so suddenly and with such vehemence. Certainly the IFA didn't and Mr Justice O'Dono van caught it and the rest of us by surprise with his directness and determination.
To a great extent, the IFA has been making it up as it goes along since then, and that is precisely the sort of situation which can go anywhere, and therein lies its danger.
As the week wore on, it became clear even to urban voters that the farmers do have a case, but Drapier detected no great warmth towards the IFA.
Tom Parlon may well be the best and most reasonable leader it has had in years, but the image of the association as a whole is deeply negative. There is nothing understated about the IFA. All parties have incurred hostility and personal pressure from members of the organisation.
There is not a Minister for Agriculture or opposition spokesman who was not "the worst ever" and all have learned that gratitude for past services is not something to be expected from an association which sees life primarily in terms of its own rights. But there is no great love for the processors either. The ghosts of the beef tribunal have still to be laid to rest.
Joe Walsh has no magic wand, no instant fix to offer. Whatever solution is patched together will be no more than a "temporary little arrangement". The IFA now finds itself negotiating from a position of weakness and the best it can expect is some sort of truce with a replay in the autumn. Meanwhile, the Constitution committee under Brian Lenihan and Jim O'Keeffe has begun to consider an issue which just might determine the length of this Dail - abortion. Drapier does not envy their task. They asked for submissions, and they have got them by the lorryload. Literally tens of thousands, many of them circulars, but many lengthy, even thoughtful.
It's going to take time to sort through them all, and in spite of Mildred Fox's impatience, Drapier does not think it will be possible to come to any rapid conclusions. There would be little point in asking the public for its views and then not giving those views proper weight.
But Drapier also detects a change of mood on the issue. Not so much a swing one way or the other, but a lessening of tension and a lowering of the temperature. There won't be any going back to the intense personal bitterness of the 1980s and Drapier notes a general determination to keep things calm and level.
The other big issue taken up by the committee - electoral reform - seems to Drapier to be going nowhere.
Noel Dempsey's motives may be as pure as the driven snow on this one - but no one in the Opposition is taking him at face value. Certainly Drapier sees no prospect of all-party agreement on a single alternative to our present system. The one lesson we have all learned from referendums is that unless there is some sort of cross-party consensus the effort is doomed from the outset.