Despite the presence of 4,000 gardai, 2,000 Defence Forces personnel and an unknown number of Secret Service agents, a small group of protesters managed to have a significant, if unintentional, impact on the US-EU security summit in Co Clare.
Banging tin trays and making peace signs around 170 kaleidoscope-coloured protestors created a blockade on the N18. As the road was closed and close to a peace camp this shouldn't have been an issue, or a surprise. However, this road was the access point to Dromoland Castle for a large fleet of media cars and buses.
Standing in a stationary bus locked in a traffic jam and with the time for the post-summit press conference fast approaching, temperatures were rising. Matters had not been helped by a 90 minute tour through - admittedly lovely - Co Clare countryside as the press shuttle attempted to evade another protest blocking the bridge at Clarecastle.
Multilingual mutterings grew louder and more animated as the 1.45 p.m. start time for the press conference drew near. There was talk of mutiny. "Leave the bus and walk through the protesters".
"No," the assembled media were warned sternly. To do so would result in automatic loss of our security clearance. With time fast running out an enterprising Sky News crew abandoned bus and began filming the stationary European blue double decker press shuttle. Radio reporters started filing "plan B" copy of the craic on the road and the "Irishness" of it all.
And then, a couple of the 4,000 gardai in Co Clare arrived. Cars were moved. A double-decker performed a neat three point backwards turn on a dual-carriageway of messily parked vehicles.
But media mob wasn't soothed. "What the hell is going on?" was regularly intoned. And then salvation. No, there was no helicopter bringing President Bush to us - although it was strongly suggested, particularly by one French TV crew. No, the good news, according to the hassled Government press secretary, was that the press conference was being held.
Poor lad. Slip of the tongue. He got a pan-European lashing of invective and frustration. We had travelled all this way, to spend the key moment a hundred yards from the press conference in a sweltering bus. Pages had to be filled, stories files. There were moans and groans and gnashing of teeth.
Until, this is, the poor lad he realised the Irish idiom was not crossing the cultural divide.
"No, no, it's fine. It's being held 'back', till you get there". Such a collective sigh of relief has not been heard in the State since Keano came back.
President Bush, the ruler of the free world etc etc was waiting for this bedraggled sweaty group cooped up on a double-decker bus. That changed things.
"Proper order. . . . Sure you can't have a press conference without the press". And so we made it. Thirty minutes late. And the three Presidents, Bush, Ahern and Prodi, were waiting.
Not even a sharp "get them off the bus NOW" from an very addled Government official followed by a laptop handicap gallop across the grass could dampen sprits now. We sat in the sun and listened to what three powerful men had to say.
And the lads in the GAA jerseys and hair you could knit with will probably never know that by jaywalking down the N18 they kept Bush in Co Clare for an extra 30 minutes.
