'Zhin tien shang woo', as they say in Mayo

WASN’T IT lovely to see Enda Kenny and Richard Bruton – the man who tried to oust him – getting along so well in China this week? They made a good team.

During a major Tourism Ireland promotion in Beijing’s St Regis Hotel, the Taoiseach was waiting to speak but his throat felt very dry. He looked around for a glass of water and spotted a table of soft drinks – an eye-catching display of tumblers filled with different coloured concoctions.

Enda picked up the palest one and was about to drink it down when suddenly, like a secret-service bodyguard, Richard Bruton hurled himself forward.

“Whiskey, Taoiseach!” he cried. “Whiskey!”

Enda hastily put down the glass. All he had wanted was a thirst-quenching mineral, not a Jameson Whiskey cocktail.

Luckily for him, Richard was on hand to save the day and prevent Enda from doing a Boris Yeltsin in front of his hosts.

The Taoiseach seemed to enjoy his trip to China. He told students at Tsinghua University: “Zhin tien shang woo. Ow wen gau shing. Yo jee way wang wen ching wah dah schway.”

He delighted his Chinese audience with whatever it was he said. The interpreters were most impressed.

Enda’s handlers didn’t want to let him try his hand at Chinese – too much scope for an unintentional verbal blunder.

So he took them all by surprise when he launched into the Mandarin. The Taoiseach was delighted with himself. He learned his lines in the car on the way to the function. Ambassador Declan Kelleher wrote them out phonetically and Enda read them back, using the correct tone and emphasis.

It’s been a hectic few weeks for the Taoiseach: over to Britain and the Continent, across and back to America, up and down to Mayo and all the way to China.

Yet, despite the gruelling schedule Enda has set himself, the novelty of being Taoiseach has yet to wear off.

On the final day of his trip to America, a colleague was walking past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue when she heard sirens in the distance. She was ordered by a police officer to, “Move off the road, ma’am. Get on the sidewalk and keep walking!”

There was great excitement among the hordes of tourists when a motorcade passed at speed under escort.

“Who was that?” they asked the cop. And he told them.

But they could just have easily asked our friend, who recognised the man in the back seat of the SUV with the big smile on his face, holding up his iPhone and filming the White House as he was driven past.

Yes, for it was our Enda, on his way to the airport, and recording the trip for the folks back home in Castlebar.

Bless.