"Politics isn't like this in Dublin," Mary Banotti declared to the enthusiastic crowd gathered in Kanturk, Co Cork. Earlier one of the faithful whispered that we were in the only constituency where Austin Currie came second last time round. Welcome to Fine Gael heartland.
The candidate had been greeted in nearby Charleville by Margaret Houlihan, a young bagpiper. It had gone down so well Margaret was packed onto the Banotti coach to herald her arrival at Kanturk.
Armed with a travelling musician perhaps the handlers would start adding jugglers and balloon-animal makers to the entourage.
But there was no need. A small pipe band awaited the coach and Margaret fell into step with them as the canvass turned into a parade. Cars with parents on the homeward leg of the school-run came to a standstill.
"She nearly has us converted," Mary O'Donoghue said after a close encounter with the candidate. And had she been? "I have anyway," her friend, Sheila Cronin, said. And Mary agreed. They had leanings towards the Government candidate, but both agreed Ms Banotti was "very like Mary Robinson".
"Not that you need to be like Mary Robinson," Sheila added. It was, they agreed, a case of the conversion of Kanturk.
On the Sheehan farm, outside Buttevant, Ms Banotti had been adamant that she felt at home in a pair of green wellies. Her attempts to coax a cow into a photo opportunity were less than successful. And while she gave her TV interview one of the faithful jumped over the electric fence looking determined to slap a sticker on the animal. The cow was having none of it.
Ms Banotti said she was "delighted" with the latest opinion poll, "and I hope I will continue to gain support".
But on yesterday's figures she would lose the election, the man from RTE said. "I'm very hopeful that in the three weeks left before the election I'm going to bridge that . . . Sorry, I'm going to stop there. I'm not going to use the word bridge."
There were chuckles all round as she did a second take without the offending verb, now a McAleese trademark.
"Hello, I'm Mary," she said later in Charleville to a resident in a Sisters of Mercy old people's home. "I'm Mary, too," the woman replied. "What's your second name?" Ms Banotti asked. "There's a lot of us around these days."
Then the lunch-time news featured Derek Nally's pronouncement on prostitution. "I would be in favour of anything that would reduce the risk to women," Ms Banotti said, "not just of disease, but of the dangers to themselves."
In Killarney Sam himself was pressed into service. "He's looking well," someone said as she posed with the Sam Maguire cup outside the bank.
At the town Teagasc centre Ms Banotti told a women's group that her childhood dream had been to become a "poultry instructress" like her godmother, Mary, "notwithstanding that up till then I had grown up in a semi-detached house in Clontarf."
The day had started in Mitchelstown where Ms Banotti put a £20 bet on herself and a horse at Paddy Powers. She had only planned to bet on herself (at odds of 5/2) and then someone spotted a horse in the 5 o'clock at Gowran Park. "Stroll Home, Mary, bet on Stroll Home."
So she did. Unfortunately the horse strolled home in fourth place.
