The Ronald Reagan visitors' centre didn't open this past summer, for the first time since Ballyporeen's famous descendant came calling in 1984.
It wasn't any sudden collapse in tourist interest. The students who traditionally staff it on their holidays just didn't apply for the grant in time, apparently; and the woman with the keys, Alice Ryan, will still open it for anyone who asks. But not that many people have been asking lately.
The centre, built by Bord Failte as an annexe to the parochial hall, is a pleasant if modest attraction. It features a small montage of local history; from the poverty into which Michael Regan was born in 1829 to a glorious day in June when his great-grandson walked down the village street with an extra vowel in his surname, a limousine full of heavily armed agents close behind, and snipers on the rooftops.
There's a film of the occasion and a few artefacts too, but the collection wouldn't detain a time-pressed traveller for long.
Across the street on the same crossroads is the other physical legacy of the visit. The Ronald Reagan Lounge predated the trip, in fact: John and Mary O'Farrell renamed it in 1980 when genealogists traced the roots of the new US president to this village of 400 which had been a well kept secret from most of Ireland until then. The pub is where Reagan spent most of that famous afternoon.
The business had "a fantastic four years" after the visit, John O'Farrell says. Once Reagan left the White House, however, interest waned. A more lasting legacy was the personal friendship.
The O'Farrells were later invited to the Oval Office and given a personal tour. Reagan phoned on a number of occasions. "My son answered the phone in the pub one night and told me the operator claimed to have the US president on the line. I thought it was a joke." Reagan wrote too, his last letter three years ago referring to the onset of Alzheimer's. His daughter Maureen visited last year.
The business will probably survive the decline in its Reaganomic fortunes: the family have kept a public house here for 200 years, and the premises had the distinction of being burned to the ground by the Black and Tans in 1920 - a boast to rival any presidential visit, especially in Munster. Yet the photographs on the wall leave no doubt about what was the pub's holiest hour.
They include a rarity, according to Mary O'Farrell. The couple had a four-week-old daughter at the time and were briefed by the president's advisers to "on no account ask him to hold the baby - he never does that". But when Nancy Reagan, who was cradling the child, had to sign something, the baby was duly handed to her husband, and Matt Kavanagh of The Irish Times was there to capture his slightly uneasy smile.
The Reagans stayed most of the afternoon, the US president drinking a pint of Smithwicks from a keg the secret service people brought and took away again afterwards. He was joined by James Baker and others for a cabinet sub-committee meeting in the lounge at one stage, and finally left the premises only after much haranguing by his minders.
Then, when they thought he was gone, he suddenly reappeared, says Mary O'Farrell: "He said he wanted to thank us for the honour we'd done him in putting up the [lounge] sign. He was always really, really chuffed about that. And he genuinely did regard his visit as a homecoming."
A member of the community council which runs the Reagan centre, she says one of the things that stymied its development as an attraction was the tour bus companies' demands for a cut of the souvenir sales: "It's a standard practice, I believe, but it's a disgrace."
More generally, she regrets the village didn't use the presidential link to establish some sort of industry locally. "The opportunity wasn't pursued, which was a shame. But then maybe people didn't need it. Mitchelstown is very close to us here and it's a great employer, between the cheese and the bacon factories."
Her husband adds that the visit was "a big boost, definitely, even if it didn't last as long as we would have liked". The pub is still in the guide books, he says, so tourists do still come. "But not in great numbers. We wouldn't mind Clinton dropping in."