THE sun was shining, the opinion poll results were good, reporters were kept at a distance and John Bruton's world was looking a little brighter.
The first day of the Taoiseach's four day election tour of marginal constituencies in the west and south west ended in Castlebar on Saturday night, with a cheerleading rally complete with fiery speeches and eulogies to the Taoiseach. The poll results were revealed to cheering from the crowd of 300 in the hotel hall, setting the tone for the evening.
Jim Higgins produced a vintage performance, singling out his Fianna Fail opponents for abuse while Enda Kenny recited the popular swipe at the ubiquitous "certain sections of the media".
The Kennys were in the Dail "when the Flynns were still making hats on Main Street," he declared. As for the other Fianna Fail candidates, "Morley, Moffat and Hughes ... I don't see them getting a State bicycle let alone a car.
Before you could say "Up, ya boy ya", Mr Kenny revealed gravely that his posters had been burned in Achill by some dark force. "They may tamper with the message, but they won't defeat the man" he thundered.
The third Fine Gael TD in Mayo, Mr Michael Ring, then raised the decibel level to new heights. He roared into the microphone of his achievement in winning the Mayo by election, resort schemes, water schemes, the reduction of unemployment in Castlebar, this great party, certain sections of the media and finally, the greatest Taoiseach ever to serve this State.
The Taoiseach then spoke of the great prosperity he was now seeing in Mayo. "Mayo has two Ministers at the Cabinet table, and if the Government is returned that is what the situation will be for the next five years," he said.
He ran through the familiar speech: every young person should be able to read and write, have some knowledge of a foreign language and use a computer by the age of 12; prisoners who can afford it should be made pay towards the cost of their imprisonment; violence against women must be ended; teamwork ... unity ... stability... united Europe.
Yesterday began with another round of applause, this time at Mass in Tuam Cathedral, where a group of unsuspecting boys were making their first Holy Communion. From the altar Father Joseph Quinn warmly welcomed the Taoiseach and Mrs Bruton. When the applause subsided his colleague, Father Gerry Burns, remarked to the congregation that Father Quinn's were fine words indeed, considering he was "a Soldier of destiny".
Outside the cathedral Mr Bruton gave £20 to collectors for sufferers of motor neurone disease. On Galway's Shop Street he gave 50p to a busking uileann piper.
He became expansive as the day went on, expounding lyrically in Ballinasloe on the power of love. Speaking to a gathering associated with fundraising for a CAT scan at Portiuncula Hospital he talked of the close link between psychological deprivation, loneliness and illness.
"We should treat the whole person, not just the medical symptoms," he suggested. "No one should ever forget the healing quality of love that a family can give someone in a moment of crisis in illness. That's the greatest medicine of all."
No one should ever forget the healing quality of a pleasing poll result either, in Castlebar, Ballinasloe, Tuam, Galway, Ennis and Limerick the Bruton speech was about the Government parties and Fianna Fail/PD divisions.
He was presented with a new pair of shoes (size 10) in a sunny beer garden in Ballinasloe, shook hands with Massgoers in Tuam and Galway, played the bodhran in Ennis and had his picture taken at the Treaty Stone in Limerick.
Party hardheelers steered him this way and that to shake hands with generally admiring Sunday strollers in each town. Under the Daniel O'Connell monument in Ennis, a brief chance of some real news was averted when he was steered away from a group of male teenagers, stripped to the waist, who had begun making unspeakable gestures in his direction.
The message was repeated, mantra like, at every opportunity. The momentum is in favour of the Government parties; they stand for fairness and equality; the opposition stand for division and helping the better off. And finally last night he headed off to Adare for another well publicised meeting with the Tanaiste, Mr Spring.