THE Tipperary village of Holy Cross used to have only one tourist attraction, the restored 12th-century abbey. Now, thanks to Mr Michael Lowry, it has two.
The fourth day of the resumed hearings at Dublin Castle heard the former minister complain that his famously extended house was drawing large numbers of visitors to the area, especially at weekends.
It may have been the older building Mr Lowry was thinking of when he stood down yesterday evening. As the abbey used to be, so his political career is now in ruins. But, if his demeanour at the week's conclusion was anything to go by, the restoration project is already under way.
During a brief re-examination by his counsel he agreed that, if he had been "merely Michael Lowry, Citizen, rather than Michael Lowry TD", he would have got the same payments from Dunnes Stores. Admitted tax irregularities aside, Citizen Lowry was holding his head up high.
While the restoration of his political respectability may require years of work by skilled craftsmen, his future in refrigeration, at least, seems secure.
As on Thursday, hardly half-an-hour passed yesterday without his reminding us of the huge savings his work had made for Dunnes. He even borrowed Dunnes slogan when he mentioned, for the umpteenth time, the "exceptional value" the company had enjoyed, "even better value than they're used to giving themselves."
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Denis McCullough, must have worried at the constant barrage; especially when he heard Mr Lowry speak of how his work had virtually eliminated the concept of "shrinkage" from Dunnes food operations.
The barrister may have reflected that there was no visible shrinkage in Mr Lowry's responses. Time and again, Mr McCullough went shopping for a single serving and came away with a bumper family-pack answer for the same price.
Mr Lowry didn't have it all his own way. Mr McCullough was still finding some bad smells at the bottom of the refrigerator, but these related mostly to Mr Lowry's acknowledged tax problem.
He simply avoided some questions, evaded others and, when he could do neither, expressed regret at his mistakes.
The wicket got a bit sticky when he was confronted with the part of his Dail statement in which he made an apparently disingenuous remark about offshore accounts. This was a "weasel word" which had somehow "crept in" to his statement, he explained, to a clearly incredulous Mr McCullough.
But on the central issue of the tribunal - the question of payment for political influence - Mr Lowry was able to hit most things off the middle of the bat.
His involvement in the Ballyvolane potato incident was explained away with a reference to his legendary constituency work, and Mr Ben Dunne's generosity to Fine Gael was brushed off, too.
After Mr Lowry approached him for funding, Mr Dunne was quoted as saying: "When the country is going well, Dunnes Stores is going well. It's important to have good government, and to have good government you need good opposition." Contributions totalling Pounds 130,000 followed.
Mr McCullough concluded his long cross-examination with the now-familiar set piece of a thrice-repeated question, namely: "Is the answer 'no'?" By the time Mr Lowry had offered a third valuation of an alternative answer, most of us had almost forgotten the question (whether his party knew of his house arrangement).
But the work of the tribunal is nothing personal, strictly business. Soon afterwards, after two days of locking horns with Mr Lowry, Mr McCullough thanked him graciously for his co-operation and sat down.
Earlier in the day, Mr McCullough had suggested Mr Lowry saw himself as a "victim" in the affair, even though he had brought it upon himself. Mr Lowry half-accepted this. But during another exchange, in a delayed reaction to Thursday's questions, he angrily disagreed that his relations with Dunnes Stores were either a "cosy cartel" or a "sweet-heart deal".
At another point in the proceedings, he said he had nothing left except his political integrity, and he would fight for that. When he stood down yesterday evening, he had the word "comeback" written all over his face.