"The name is Dr Bond, Dr James Bond." Predictable, perhaps, but then Pierce Brosnan was every inch the elegant and consummate gentleman some 500 or more fans expected him to be when they gathered on the quadrangle of University College Cork in glorious sunshine yesterday to watch him be conferred with an honorary Doctorate of Laws.
It is exam time at UCC and the manicured lawns and ivy-clad walls of the main quadrangle building had not seen such hysteria as that which greeted Dr Brosnan for, well, two years, when, on a similarly sunny day before any of us had ever heard of Saipan, one Roy Maurice Keane, from Mayfield, was bestowed with a similar honour.
Like that day, it was all smiles yesterday as a trim Brosnan, accompanied by his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, forsook his traditional MG sports car and glided into the quad in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, with the registration plate giving more than a nod to the role which has made the Meath-born actor famous.
It is not every day that the glitz and glamour of Hollywood arrives in UCC and Pierce Brosnan played the part to perfection. After fielding a flurry of questions from the media on everything from the war in Iraq to his hopes of playing 007 again, he accompanied UCC president Gerry Wrixon indoors before emerging 20 minutes later to sign autographs for the fans.
"Congratulations, Dr James," declared a delighted Dr Jayar Shankar, from India, who had taken time out from his research work at UCC's Process Engineering Department to meet 007. "For me, he is the most attractive of all the James Bonds. Sean Connery was good, but I think Pierce Brosnan is better," he said.
Contract cleaners Elizabeth Chisholm from Blackpool, Theresa Murphy from Douglas and Marie O'Mahony from Mahon were equally impressed. "Handsome, he's just handsome - even better in real life," said Elizabeth Chisholm, who had pushed forward to shake Pierce Brosnan's hand only to discover that Theresa Murphy had failed to capture the moment on her camera phone.
Local heroes were also honoured - among them the greatest Gaelic footballer of all time, Mick O'Connell, who recalled that he had not been in UCC since 1955, when he quit his engineering course to return to his native Valentia Island and embark on a sporting career which won him four All-Irelands.
O'Connell had not met Pierce Brosnan before, although he had seen a TV documentary about him. "I saw that programme and he has Kerry connections - the name Brosnan is synonymous with Kerry football, so we have something in common here today," he said with a smile.
Also conferred with honorary doctorates yesterday were the founder and director of Potadoireach na Caoloige in west Kerry, Louis Mulcahy; art critic and biographer Hilary Pyle; professor of psychology at Stanford, Carl E. Thoresen; and Robert Woodrow Wilson, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics.