The Irish Farmers' Association is normally as sharp as an Armani suit when it comes to protesting.
But yesterday, when the IFA decided to use a coffin to protest over the unhappy fate of the Celtic Pig, things went embarrassingly wrong.
The problem was that the coffin arrived at the Department of Agriculture offices in Kildare Street by courier, not by hearse. At the time the IFA president, Mr Tom Parlon, and his men were around the corner in Buswell's Hotel speaking to the Fourth Estate.
While this was going on, a courier drove up to the Department of Agriculture, passed the token picket and went into the building to ask for Mr Ned Walsh for whom, he said, he had a coffin.
In these troubled times at the Department, when neither the IFA nor coffins are appreciated, the courier was told that Ned Walsh - secretary of the IFA pig committee - was not there and to take his coffin elsewhere. He did.
The absence of the coffin, however, does not detract from the serious plight of nearly 100 pig producers from the Border region who estimate that they have lost nearly £5 million because of the lack of capacity to process their pigs in the area.
Men like Mr Aubrey Oliver, from Co Donegal, had been sending their pigs to the Lovell and Christmas plant, which burned down in June 1998. With too many pigs and no capacity to slaughter on either side of the Border, they found themselves in trouble.
Since then, Mr Oliver and colleagues in Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim have been continuing to receive £8 less for their pigs than farmers in the south of the State and £6 per week less than in the first quarter of this year.
Mr Oliver, one of the most progressive pig farmers in the State, now finds himself deep in debt for the first time in his 30-year farming career and may not be able to hold out until the expected recovery in the European market next year.
Another farmer, Mr Peter Morrow, from Cavan, has been put out of business by the banks. They would not continue to support his 200-sow operation or increase his £150,000 borrowings any further.
And while the coffin did not arrive, Mr Parlon made it very clear that he and the IFA would dig a very deep grave indeed for any bank which tried to sell out a pig farmer.
He said the IFA would react very badly to any such move by the banks but in the meantime, he wanted the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to meet the Border producers and convince his Cabinet colleagues that a rescue package was needed for them.
He said that the Government must take full responsibility for its failure to put the necessary regional factory facilities in place and had let the producers down.