It was down from the mountain to the plains with a vengeance for Ray Burke last Thursday. On the 38th floor of the UN headquarters the Minister for Foreign Affairs discussed the problems of the world with the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, while below on the Manhattan pavement two Irish reporters waited to ask him about the rezoning of farmland in north Co Dublin.
It was a bit of a "distraction", I commented to the Minister's media adviser, John Gallagher, as we waited. He laughed mirthlessly, as they say in the novels.
It was a visit that began with all the trappings of the annual ritual, the arrival of foreign ministers in New York for the UN General Assembly: the Government jet, the bevy of advisers, the protocol, the last-minute schedule changes.
Nothing was left to chance. Two former Irish ambassadors to the US and the present one were on hand to ensure all went smoothly: Padraic MacKernan, Secretary of the Department; Dermot Gallagher, head of the Anglo-Irish section; and Sean O hUiginn, our current man in Washington.
The media side was also heavily manned: travelling with the Minister were Dan Mulhall, press secretary of the Department, and John Gallagher, the minister's longserving media adviser and a former press officer to Aer Rianta. For parts of the visit a third media adviser was also on hand, Adrian O'Neill, press officer at the Washington Embassy.
The highlight for the Minister of the week-long visit came at the beginning when President Clinton took him aside during a reception in the Waldorf-Astoria for UN delegations and they discussed Northern Ireland. Mr Burke referred repeatedly to this meeting all week as he praised Mr Clinton's detailed knowledge of the latest developments in the peace talks.
Even for a Minister with Mr Burke's long pedigree, it was a heady experience to be given the undivided attention at a crowded reception of the leader of the most powerful country in the world, while other ministers looked on jealously. But Ireland, "the land of my ancestors", as he has now started calling it, is a priority for Mr Clinton.
Then it was the Government jet to Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, where the Minister did the usual rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Capitol Hill, the senators and congressmen with special interest in Ireland were thanked for their efforts to get the peace process back on track.
They included Senators Kennedy, Dodd and Leahy, and Congressmen Ben Gilman, Richard Neal, James Walsh and Tom Manton of the Friends of Ireland and the Ad Hoc Committee on Ireland; two groupings once at loggerheads over Sinn Fein but now peacefully co-existing and maybe even capable of merging in the future.
There was also some lobbying for a congressional measure which would ease conditions for illegal immigrants before an end-of-September deadline expired.
The Irish Embassy had arranged a breakfast for the Minister with the leading US newspapers. As it happened some of the same reporters were going on to a media lunch in the British embassy with the Northern Ireland Minister for Political Affairs, Paul Murphy.
Michael Kilian of the Chicago Tribune was struck by the firmness with which Mr Burke ruled out a "united Ireland" solution emerging from the talks. The headline on his report was: "One Ireland unlikely, envoy says. Irish official believes Britain to keep Ulster."
Later, Mr Kilian questioned Mr Murphy about this, adding that it was the first time he had heard an Irish minister dismiss the united Ireland option in such a manner. But the British ambassador jumped in to tell Mr Kilian he was wrong and that Mr Burke's predecessor, Dick Spring, had taken the same line.
Mr Murphy explained that Mr Burke was only being realistic and expressing the "consent" principle upon which the talks are based. But if a united Ireland was not on, neither were the unionists going to be able to keep the status quo, Mr Murphy said firmly.
Mr Burke's visit to the White House was a rushed 20-minute chat with National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. The Government jet was waiting to whisk him and his entourage back to New York and a UN delegation lunch with the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.
There were also the "bilaterals", meetings with other foreign ministers to listen to their requests or to ask them for a favour. Turkey and Cyprus would be asking for Irish support for their EU entry. Ireland would be looking for the support of key non-aligned states, such as Colombia, for Irish membership of the Security Council in 2000.
The Minister's address to the General Assembly is supposed to be the highlight of these UN visits, but as Thursday dawned for Mr Burke came the news of a Magill article about planning permission sought by a builder who came to his house before the 1989 election along with another man bearing £30,000 for his election expenses.
The timing was rotten for the Minister as he did his UN rounds and prepared to deliver his speech. John Gallagher's usefulness as a media adviser now became apparent as Irish newspapers and television demanded the Minister's reaction.
Foreign Affairs mandarins rightly refuse to get involved in anything to do with "the builders of north Co Dublin" but Mr Gallagher has become accustomed to handling this story since Mr Burke went to Iveagh House. He arranged for the interviews on the Manhattan pavement, where the Minister dismissed the latest development as "an ongoing smear" and a distraction from his highlevel diplomacy across the street in the UN building.
It was undoubtedly a relief for Mr Burke to get back inside the glass walls and do the tour d'horizon of world affairs - and also to bash the Brits a bit in his speech over leaky Sellafield. No other Irish minister had used a UN speech to do this. But then north Co Dublin's beaches are lapped by radioactive waste from Britain.
It is all part of that "totality of relationships" which binds the two islands as they set off together on the peace road. Mr Burke likes the phrase even if, like most people, he is not quite sure what it means.