IT'S A LONG way from the estimable town of Clara, Co Offaly, where the Taoiseach was born, to the citadel of capitalism in Wall Street. Our man Brian was there yesterday where he had the onerous task of ringing the bell to start the day's trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
It's an honour bestowed on heads of state and government as well as the occasional television or movie star. Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung did it last year, while another noted bell-ringer was Sarah Jessica Parker, aka Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City fame, who wore "a shimmery dress" for the purpose. Readers will be relieved to know that the Taoiseach opted for a sober business suit.
The honour may be a great one but the actual ceremony itself is a tad disappointing. You don't get a big metal bell to rattle at the assembled capitalists, you just press a button to create the ding-dong effect. The ceremony took place at 9.30am on the dot but, given the state of the international economy, it was hardly surprising that the traders on the floor took little notice of what the bespectacled gentleman on the platform above them was doing. Earlier in the stock exchange dining room, the Taoiseach was guest of honour at a hearty breakfast of bacon, egg and sausage followed by "coffee or Barry's Irish tea", organised by the highly efficient people from Enterprise Ireland.
As he reminisced about his early days in New York, we discovered that in his student days about 30 years ago, Cowen worked for an Italian demolition company. Some might say that's where he learnt his approach to inter-party debate in Leinster House. Questioned by the media later as to the name of the wrecking company, the Taoiseach said it might have been "Yellowball", but just possibly he was mixing it up with "Fianna Fáil".
However, his mission to New York this time was constructive rather than destructive. He had come, not to bury the Irish economy but to praise it. Again and again he hammered home the message the Ireland was "open for business" and US investors would continue to be most welcome.
He also revealed at the launch of a photographic exhibition in the Irish Arts Centre that his mother, May, emigrated to the US for a number of years before returning to Ireland where she married the late Ber Cowen.
Had she remained in the US, who would be ringing the stock exchange bell for Ireland now?
There was a good illustration of New York's ethnic diversity at the same event from senior Irish- American politician Christine Quinn who said that, when she told colleagues on the city council she was going to meet the Irish "Taoiseach", one of them asked, in all seriousness, why Mr Cowen's job-title was in Yiddish.
