Mr Zigmars Brunavs of the Latvian Institute of Agrarian Economics was out of breath when he arrived at the Irish national food stand in the giant SIAL food fair exhibition yesterday morning.
He had flown in from Latvia and had only one question on his mind - Had the Irish voted Yes or No to Nice?
He had to wait until he reached the Irish stand before finding out and when told the Irish had voted Yes, he proceeded to shake hands with everyone in sight and kissed all the women.
"This is a great day for Ireland and Latvia. If the vote had gone wrong, we would have been locked out of the EU and that would be the death of us," he said.
He said his friends, who run a bar in Riga, had put an advert in the national papers last Saturday saying that if Ireland voted No, then there no more Irish drinks would be sold there.
"I think he was joking because he is a Guinness lover and I doubt he could give it up, but it ran very deeply for us," he said.
Mr Brunavs, the project manager of the Marketing Council, said the way was now cleared for the referendum which would be held in his country to opt for EU membership.
"I have come here to the Irish Food Board stand to thank you and to celebrate with you and to learn from you because we already know how successful your country has become," he said.
Staff on the three Irish stands at the show were inundated yesterday with people from all over the Continent, and especially from Eastern Europe, congratulating them on the Yes vote.
A Polish couple, Jan and Imogen Smit, said they had gone to considerable trouble to seek out the Irish stands to find Irish people and congratulate them.