ALBERT came by Concorde Bertie came bearing Bono's leather jacket, Charlie didn't come at all. The Fianna Fail faithful - some 500 Irish and Irish Americans, including six former government ministers - gathered in New York on Friday night for the party's 70th anniversary celebration and its biggest fund raiser outside Ireland.
The attendance at the Fianna Fail dinner at the Tony Pierre Hotel included the former president, Dr Patrick Hillery, and his, wife, Maeve; the actor Richard Harris, the author Edna O'Brien, and the politician Sile de Valera, the grand daughter of the party founder, Eamon de Valera.
At $350 for an individual ticket, and $5,000 or $10,000 for a table, only the affluent followers of the party could show their support.
The party leader, Bertie Ahern, boasted that Fianna Fail had support from both Democrats and Republicans in the US, and solid core support among Irish immigrants.
Mr Ahern ended up carrying Bono's leather jacket to New York to pass on to Adi Roche of the Chernobyl Children's project, whose organisation is holding a major rock auction on the Internet. But the reluctant star of the show was Albert Reynolds, fresh from his trying times in London and with his shoulder in a sling following an accident. He had a strong message for the British: "Don't mess around with the Irish. We're a proud people and we won't take it".