Endasteria as Kenny wows the faithful

IT was like Elvis playing Memphis, or The Beatles back in Liverpool.

Enda.

Rocked.

Castlebar.

Perhaps MEP Jim Higgins was a tad over the top when he introduced the new Taoiseach as “the real messiah for Ireland,” but Mr Kenny certainly fed the 5,000 with hopes and wishes for a better tomorrow as they gathered at the Royal Theatre.

The vanity of the bonfires which marked Brian Cowen’s homecoming as Taoiseach in 2008 had thankfully been discarded for a much more understated, though still joyful affair.

We never saw Triumphal Enda, but we did see Serious Enda, At ease with everyone Enda, and most intriguingly of all, Hey, I’m cool joking about recreational drug use Enda, as revealed when he teed-up his visit to the White House this St Patrick’s Day by remembering when he handed a bowel of shamrock to ex-New York Mayor — and scourge of the mafia — Rudy Giuliani and got a frosty response after he told him: “You know Rudy, you can smoke that stuff after it dries out.”

But given Barack Obama’s self-confessed “experimentation” with cocaine in the past, it probably would not be a good move for Enda to repeat the weed remarks in the oval office.

One person certainly in need of no outside stimulants in order to reach a heightened stream of consciousness is Enda’s warm-up man and fellow Mayo TD Michael Ring — he always seems on a natural high.

Mr Ring bounded to the microphone like a bull in desperate search for a shop full of china — not that he actually needed a microphone, as his form of vocal delivery is like unleashing a giant airbag of noise from the stage which just explodes and expands outwards filling all before it as it does so.

Mr Kenny had been an hour late on stage and appeared somewhat pensive during the opening speeches as he sat forward, hands clasped, his head often down, as he seemed in danger of becoming engulfed by the raw emotion of the event.

But Enda delivered a relaxed, thoughtful address which only veered into cringe-mode once when he again used that awful (and awfully sexist) analogy of the Irish people as “Paddy”.

Though, of course, there were other more endearing Enda-isms such as his renaming of the web when he announced he’d received messages of support and congratulations from across the globe: “On the computer system, on the internets, and everything.”

Mr Ring had gone out of his way to tell the audience how delighted he had been at being given the role of junior tourism minister in the coalition carve-up — which just shows how quickly opinions can change in politics as that was certainly not the vibe he was giving off last week — and Mr Kenny underscored the long, and not always warm, relationship between them when he remembered the two had played against each other in a local 1974 GAA grudge match.

“He marked me, the mark he left was on the back of my neck — he always goes for the head,” the Taoiseach said admiringly.

The excited crowds were largely made up of the country backbone of the party, not the sneery metropolitan elites who look down on those who are not classed as PLUs — “People Like Us” — and tried unsuccessfully to oust Enda last summer.

At the end of his victory address, it took Mr Kenny 20 minutes to get down from the stage as the adoring audience surged around him.

A special crash-barrier fence was then erected along a side wall of the theatre where the faithful queued six or seven deep as Enda darted back and forth up the line like an electric hare at a dog-track.

He was a particular hit with ladies of a certain age, one swooned: “Oh, he’s just like James Bond, but nicer!”

The place was by now gripped with a sort of hysteria — Endasteria — and it took Mr Kenny a full hour and 45 minutes to satisfy the demand for handshakes and hugs, with the band on stage finishing long before he did.

The audience had endured a lengthy wait and sat through some dreary, overly long speeches from the likes of Mr Higgins before the Taoiseach spoke, but they seemed more than contented once they got their own Enda moment.

But not even the Atlantic rain sweeping across Mayo could dampen Enda’s homecoming as the opposition too succumbed and threw in the towel by putting up a banner near the theatre which graciously stated: “Fianna Fáil congratulates Enda Kenny.”

“I never take myself seriously, but I take the job seriously,” Mr Kenny had told the crowds — knowing that his political rivals never took him completely seriously until it was too late and Fianna Fáil must now endure the ultimate humiliation of copying his masterclass in how to bring a party back from the brink of extinction to electoral dominance.

As with all provincial venues, the entertainment roster the Royal Theatre boasts is certainly an eclectic one.

Mr Kenny fitted into a diverse line-up that ranges from On A Wing And A Prayer, a “dramatic musical” about how Monsignor Horan built Knock Airport (yes, seriously), to dance music mash-up kings 2manyDJs.

And next month the venue is hit by Jedward, but they will be hard pressed to top the Taoiseach’s performance.

EndKen rocked out.