Tears were shed last week at the departure of Dick Spring and Fergus Finlay. This week it's Ruairi Quinn's turn to have the benefit of contradictory advice about the future of the Labour Party.
There's nothing new or surprising in that. Mr Spring didn't spend 15 years as Labour leader without learning to recognise plamas at a mile; and everyone knows that, once they've paid their respects, crocodiles slither on.
What was amusing about some commentaries was that they saw nothing odd about praising Mr Spring's achievement in making Labour a party of the 1990s, then - without pause or blush - demanding that it get back to its roots.
There's nothing wrong about suggesting that a party should get back to its roots provided that that isn't code for getting back in its box - resuming an old Labour role as the half in a two-and-a-half-party line-up.
Ironically, the mould of that old line-up was broken, not by Labour, but by Charles Haughey and Des O'Malley, when they led Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats into coalition in 1989, abandoning core values and sworn enmities on the way.
It was then that the choice which had existed for more than 55 years - between Fianna Fail and the rest - ceased to be the only option for parties and political partnerships in this State.
Labour's old hang-up about coalition had already been exorcised by Dick Spring, with the help of an electoral commission, an impressive set of advisers and a couple of years in opposition.
After the mould-breaking 1989 election, it took another two-and-a-half years in opposition to sharpen the party's parliamentary wits and complete its preparation for a leading role in government.
Because of broken moulds and unwasted years, with consequent successes in local, presidential and general elections, the party arrived in office with a clear idea of what it wanted to achieve and the determination to convince its partners that it was worth achieving.
The result was that, as Ruairi Quinn said the other day, the centre of gravity moved to the left.
And not only the parties of the left, but those of the centre and right, were carried along on the tide.
Take the FF-Labour coalition - 20 years earlier, some senior FF deputies had been so upset during a famous debate on contraception that they refused to talk about condoms; in long, thundering speeches from the opposition benches they simply - if more suggestively - insisted on calling them "things."
In coalition with Labour, an FF minister presided over the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults, without a fuss. And when a Labour colleague completed the task of making condoms generally available, there wasn't a peep out of anyone.
In the case of the Fine Gael-led coalition, the inclusion of Democratic Left was the clearest example of change. In 1992 the chances of forming a tripartite administration had been scuppered by FG's refusal to countenance the idea.
In 1997, after two-and-a-half years in government with Proinsias De Rossa, Pat Rabbitte, Liz McManus and Eamon Gilmore, John Bruton declared a preference for partnership with DL, even it wasn't essential to the formation of a government.
Now, though, the left generally and Labour in particular must ask how it came to sustain significant losses in both of this year's elections; and, even more to the point, what is to be done to recover ground given in the lurch to the right.
The left generally and Labour in particular must accept that, though the right didn't make substantial electoral gains in the general election, the left suffered substantial losses. And the point made in June was underlined in October.
The search for an explanation - and for the way ahead - must include an examination of events and conditions at home and abroad and not only in the frequently stifling atmosphere of party politics.
The pressure from the right is bound to increase and to be felt on different fronts. There will be demands for another referendum on abortion, perhaps for a change in the law on divorce.
The Government, some members of which long for a return to the two-and-a-half party line-up, may push out the boat of electoral reform, in an effort to reduce the number of parties and the influence of smaller parties in particular.
There's a notable lack of enthusiasm for openness or for any advance towards the removal of the hypocrites' charter, cabinet confidentiality. And for a variety of wretched reasons the public funding of parties has been passed to the Moriarty tribunal - fobbed off for the time being.
We must wait for Charlie McCreevy to say whether it's payback time and for whom; and for Mr Justice Moriarty to reopen the examination of the Haughey and Lowry affairs, but not the Ansbacher Accounts and the scheming of the tax-dodging super-rich.
Even as it keeps watch on these issues, on the North and on EU affairs, the left must prepare for the by-elections in Limerick East and Dublin North, and examine its own inadequacies.
It might begin by taking a point made by the new director of London School of Economics, Anthony Giddens, in Beyond Left and Right, about the danger of accepting new certainties - the new absolutes of the right - where the old certainties failed.
What he suggests is that the fall of the Berlin Wall didn't mean that the game was up for the left; it changed the challenge. The state didn't have all the answers, as some socialists thought; neither does the marketplace.
Of course organisational weaknesses have to be acknowledged and remedied, a problem best tackled in opposition and with the help of such modern resources, in research and communications, as the parties can afford.
The views of those who are close to, though not necessarily part of, the left should be taken into account; their criticisms canvassed and assessed in what ought to be a thorough and clear-sighted review.
What of the trade unions? Their roles have changed enormously, often with too little public attention; but in spite of the best efforts of some activists and a few leaders, they are thought relevant only to their members, to the employers they negotiate with and to industrial relations.
If the unions leave many issues to the State, the State in turn leaves much more than is generally recognised to voluntary organisations which, as Giddens point out, have more members than political parties.
But in many instances, they suffer because they lack the strength that unity brings and the muscle that a political network might supply.
This shouldn't be about roping in the unions or voluntary organisations to help Labour, DL, the Green Party or those Independents who lean to the left; it's about a shared constituency and practical steps to identify and promote common interests in a way that hasn't been tried so far.
It may help the politicians, it won't answer the immediate or the long-term questions they face.
The only certainty is that the answers will not be found among those who divide Labour into FF types and FG types and assume that the only choice to be made by Mr Quinn and his colleagues is between them.