The all-embracing, huggy-wuggy, person-of-the-people image of RTE's Charlie Bird took a knock yesterday, when he demanded that an audience cease its applause and left it hissing impotently about "arrogance" and "rudeness".
"We came here to support Adi Roche," said an angry Clonmel woman, Ms Jean Holland, "and felt we had a perfect right to applaud. We're just ordinary people. He could have explained it nicely, as in, `This is a press conference and these are the rules'."
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate sat impassively on the platform, mightily impressed no doubt at this manifestation of real power, as opposed to the mostly symbolic presidential kind.
This was the new Ms Roche, smartly turned out in a slim, grape-coloured, long-skirted suit, her hair shorter and more businesslike, her manner more sombre, her speaking style a great deal slower, more measured and altogether more presidential.
The object of the exercise being to claw back lost territory in the gravitas stakes, there were few laughs.
Dick Spring promised a limited number of posters (a nod to the Greens, presumably) and also to have them taken down "within a week".
And the poster business reminded Proinsias De Rossa of a friend who actually likes putting up posters. "He goes out, he says, to put up 100 Democratic Left posters and can come back with 100 Fianna Fail ones," he announced to laughter, "though not in my constituency, I hasten to add".
Apart from that there wasn't a lot to laugh about. On a day that began with the candidate languishing in third place in the polls, she was introduced by a Derry man, Mr Richard Moore, the director of the Children in Crossfire charity, who himself was blinded in the troubles at the age of 10.
Voice shaking, he said: "Nothing short of a miracle will bring back my eyesight, but Adi Roche has given me something far more valuable, and that is a vision".
She gave his hand a comforting pat at the end, but that was the only threat of an embrace during the proceedings. And when she rose to speak, not only was there no talk of rainbows or cocoons, but in eight A4 pages of her speech the word "love" never dared to raise its head.
She began instead with a solemnly intoned recital of the presidential oath, the objective being to reassure people that she would be no loose cannon in the Aras and was well aware of the limitations within which the President had to work.
She got into her stride when she got to her "life's work", speaking of "a place that might more accurately be described as the lost world". She talked a lot about the spirit of the Irish people; a spirit which, "harnessed and focused, can move any mountain".
And she had two big ideas, both of which are bound to draw ire and fire. The first is her intention to host, "with the full approval of the Government, a global summit in Ireland . . . of peacemakers and humanitarians".
The second, a more defiant stroke after the storm of derision with which it was greeted when she first proposed it last week, is to open up the Aras to children. Yesterday she put flesh on the bones by proposing to ask "the leading non-governmental children's agencies in Ireland to come together in a commission to advise me on how I can help to carry out the spirit of the Proclamation, which urges us to cherish all the children of the nation equally, and on how I can open the President's house to the children of Ireland".
The speech was delivered in a clear, firm voice. The assistance of a Shakespearean actor, Kieran Burke, with tone and pace clearly paid off. The big test, though, would be in her question-and-answer session afterwards. Liberated from the script, could she quell her rampant enthusiasm and natural bent for the 15-clause sentence?
She did, in spite of the suggestion that lots of children had already been to the Aras in the Robinson era. Why change then, she answered, adding that what she wanted to do was build on the Robinson vision.
Asked, in view of her passionate stance on issues like neutrality, if she would be able to "keep her mouth shut" as president, she was equally succinct: "I am crystal clear on the duties and responsibilities of the Presidency."
And what if the Government didn't approve of her idea for the global summit? "I am a lady who rarely takes no for an answer," she replied, sounding dangerously like the old-brand Adi Roche.
"I would find if difficult to understand why the Government would have any difficult with it. It's so strongly a part of the spirit of Ireland, I would be surprised to find any opposition to it."