It's a long way from Dublin's Royal Canal to Manhattan's East River but the Taoiseach seemed to make the transition with ease. UN headquarters is located in a spectacular setting beside the East River and it was here that Bertie Ahern came to take on the world.
Drumcondra Man made his way to the podium of the General Assembly as though he were walking to his seat in the stand at Croke Park or Dalymount.
Unfazed by the fact that Clinton, Putin, Blair and Barak had preceded him, Bertie was determined to make the most of his five minutes on the world stage.
Ireland is a small nation with a big heart, was his message. We have suffered famine and the ravages of history but now we are doing very nicely, thank you, and we want to give something back.
Sadly for Bertie, there are no votes for him in Mozambique or Ethiopia but he had good news for these and other impoverished countries which are beneficiaries of Ireland's largesse.
Whereas Irish aid was given out in the past with an eye-dropper, the Taoiseach was now producing a ladle.
Not one, not two, not three but four times. That was how much he was proposing to increase the Irish financial contribution to the poor and wretched of the earth.
Struggling with the figures, official sources estimated that this would mean a rise from nearly £200 million to "over £800 million".
As a representative of Dublin Central, Bertie knows all about the Gregory Deal negotiated by his constituency colleague to better the lot of impoverished citizens. Now Bertie was proposing a Gregory Deal for the world.
Liz O'Donnell was beaming: at last she had bested the beancounters in the Department of Finance. African delegates and development workers congratulated the Irish, but there was mild irritation in the Ahern entourage that we media types were still focusing on European bank appointments and Machiavellian doings back home.
It will take seven years before the full amount of Bertie's Bounty is paid over and, by then, he may no longer be Taoiseach. But barring economic catastrophe, it is most unlikely that future governments will go back on this solemn promise made before the leaders of the world.
Besides, there is cross-party unity on the view that the Celtic Tiger should cough up.
Bertie was not the only Irish performer on the UN stage this week. He was joined yesterday by Mrs Mary Robinson in her capacity as High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was recruiting the Taoiseach's support for the World Conference Against Racism which she is organising in South Africa next year.
Bono from U2 also surfaced, canvassing world leaders for his campaign to ease the debt burden on the underdeveloped world. Meanwhile, the Taoiseach was signing protocols against child prostitution and the use of children as soldiers.
Next week it will be back to the rough-and-tumble of domestic politics and the what-did-he-know and when-did-he-know-it world of charge and counter-charge. But when it's all over and the final whistle blows on his political career, Bertie Ahern will at least be able to look back on the Millennium Summit as a good week's work.
Yet although he got his name in the New York Times, Bertie was not the main focus of attention here. The ageing lion, Fidel Castro, had not lost his star quality and Bill Clinton was much in evidence as he neared the end of his run.
There was hope that the President could work his magic and broker a deal between the two sides in the Middle East stand-off but it was not to be.
There were never so many heads of state and government in one place, it was said, and never so much rhetoric and high-flown declarations. Given their track record, it was a safe bet that some of the leaders present did not mean a word of it.
The proof of the pudding would be in supplying troops for peacekeeping and money for aid. Ireland had a long history of providing the troops and now, at last, she was delivering serious money as well.