The world watches as Cowen attempts to sail through storm

ON Arainn Mhór Island off the Donegal coast, a strange sound greeted Taoiseach Brian Cowen on Saturday – applause.

The beleaguered Mr Cowen was clapped twice when he spoke in the island’s community centre while canvassing for the upcoming Donegal South by-election, but there was no hiding from the big bailout that has the country in its grip.

You know you’re in the brown stuff when the New York Times is on your tail, and so it was that the exquisitely named Landon Thomas Jnr found himself on the same ferry from Burtonport to Arainn Mhór on Saturday as the Taoiseach. Ireland’s crumbling finances are headline news around the world.