Joe Biden made the short journey to Áras an Úachtaráin to pay a courtesy call on President Higgins. It was the neighbourly thing to do, seeing as Barack Obama’s second in command is staying just across the road in the US ambassador’s residence during most of his six-day visit to Ireland.
Both men needed the early start.
Biden had to fly on to Mayo for a day-long bonding session with Enda Kenny, who may possibly be in love with him. Then again, Joe appears similarly smitten with the Taoiseach.
In each others’ company, they slip easily into Top-o-the Mornin’ mode, high on affability and tales of the aul sod. Today, as Mr Vice President continues to be shown around his beautiful native county of Mayo, Kenny and Biden, bejaysus, are expected to hit peak Tooraloora.
It’s lovely to see the VP enjoying himself so much with his family here, and maybe a little humbling to some of us cynics when we see how much he treasures his ancestral links to this country.
Michael D also had a flight to catch. He was off to Lille after lunch to take in Ireland’s crucial Euro 2016 match against Italy.
The night before, the Taoiseach welcomed the vice-president to Government Buildings and presented him with a hurley and sliothar. The two men, folksy to their fingertips, got on like a house on fire.
They looked well in the photographs, having the banter in Enda’s homely office among all his souvenirs and knick-knacks. And in the background, prominent on the marble mantelpiece, stood a framed photograph of the Taoiseach, his wife and Joe.
Tea trolley
That was putting it up to Michael D and Sabina. We don’t know if they were up all night scouring their scrapbooks for a suitable snap to stick into a frame, but it didn’t really matter.
The President and the vice-president held their 30 minute meeting in private, away from the cameras and microphones. All we could see, as they disappeared into the drawing room, was a mahogany tea trolley on wheels.
The Áras looked lovely for the occasion, with arrangements of summer flowers in the entrance hall and corridor leading to the State Reception Room. Little bowls of plump pink peonies were dotted here and there.
Outside, staff worked on the big marquee used during the President’s garden party season. On Tuesday, there was an event to mark International Yoga Day, with hundreds of practitioners doing contortions on the lawn.
Aides and security personnel arrived in great numbers before the vice-president made his entrance. He was running a little late. Some of his team wore their dark glasses indoors for a while, giving rise to fears that they might knock over the President’s bibelots.
Death ray stare
Finally, with the parched media eyeing the off-limits refreshment table, Michael D and Sabina emerged from a door in the corner to coincide perfectly with the incoming Joe.
He threw his arm around President Higgins’s shoulder, exactly way Enda would do, if he didn’t know Michael D would kill with a death ray stare.
It was time for Joe Biden to sign the visitors’ book. He sat at the little desk, Michael D to one side of him and Sabina, elegant in mint green, on the other.
Joe picked up the fancy pen, bowed his head and began to write. The President smiled. Sabina smiled. The cameras clicked noisily. And Joe kept on writing. About 30 officials, stuffed into the large entrance from the corridor, watched from a distance.
And still Joe wrote. It was like he was doing his Leaving Cert. Eventually, even the cameras fell silent.
“I’m writing a letter,” he joked. Michael D, probably feeling the effects of the previous day’s yoga, leaned on the back of his chair for support and said that could be the title of a song.
“A letter from your son in America.”
“That’s right,” said the vice-president.
Then he started writing again. Sabina Higgins, used to awkward pauses on the stage, stood in silence, smiling.
“I just want you to know, I think my grandfather Finnegan would be very proud,” said the penman.
Then we thought we heard him say of Michael D: “The President is a legend in Indiana.”
Something we really must hear more about.
While all this was happening, an email arrived from the Anti-Austerity Alliance reminding journalists that the #Trump Not Welcome press conference would be going ahead shortly as planned.
It said campaigners opposed to “a potential visit” to Ireland by Donald Trump were going to announce “details of a protest should Trump announce a last minute visit” anyway.
Just like the security team around Biden, they are ready to jump into action in an instant.
The Green Party issued a statement later advising that their leader Eamon Ryan will “travel to Ennis if Trump visits Ireland over the coming days”.
The man is a coiled spring.
But no such bad feeling around likeable Joe Biden, who is giving good vibes all round. That’s all reserved for The Donald, or “De Donie” as he should be known on this side of the Atlantic.
Back at the Áras, Michael D was in extra good form because, not only was he going off to watch a football match, but also because it’s really great meeting vice-presidents when you are an actual President.
He told his guest they were in the room where ambassadors receive their credentials. “I’ve no credentials,” came the wistful reply. “Well, we’ll talk about that in a minute,” soothed President Higgins.
When the ceremonials were over and the two men had introduced their respective teams, people couldn’t wait to see the words which took so long to write down in the visitors’ book. It was a short quote from JFK but Joe painstakingly managed to keep it between the lines on the small space allotted.
Motorcade
The President presented him with a gift of cufflinks from Kilkenny Design and “a personal gift”. Our money is on a signed copy of the poems of one Michael D Higgins.
Before Joe departed, a generously moustached man strode purposefully from the Áras shouting “Less than two! Less than two!”
So the 20 vehicles in the motorcade turned on their engines. The guys in the dark glasses stiffened. President and Ms Higgins walked their guest to the door and on the way to his car he turned around to give them both a manly thumbs up.
As he stepped into his enormous US reg armoured car (one of the ones they call “The Beast”), a Secret Service man shouted “Rock n Roll!”
And off they went, with a final wave from a smiling Mr Vice President, his brilliant white teeth shining through the tinted windows.
Off to Mayo, for a spin around with Enda in “The Beasht”.
