Farming special -Day 4: Kenny side-steps the mud-slinging in attempt to come up smelling of roses

As ever, Enda Kenny managed to find a rose in the dirt.

After a quick trip to the ploughing competition in the muddy top field, the Taoiseach did a mini walkabout back in tent city and just so happened to bump into reigning Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh.

It was a timely encounter as one of them was crowned for having a pretty face and the other is facing rumblings he should lose his crown for being pretty two-faced.

While Mr Kenny wanted to concentrate on the tractors, it was the views of chief detractor John Deasy that dominated the day after he branded Mr Kenny’s style of leadership “disgusting” just before the Taoiseach was about to take questions from the press.

Perhaps still giddy from his chance encounter with a beauty queen, Mr Kenny tried to brush away the Waterford TD as something of a drama queen just repeating an old mantra.

And it was clear the Waterford TD was not so much tapping into the usual beauty pageant plea for world peace, but more interested in knocking a piece out of Enda.

Asked if Mr Deasy had crossed a line by branding his leadership “disgusting”, Mr Kenny merely mused along the lines of: “Ah, that’s our John, nobody mind him.....”

But the outspoken onslaught leaves Mr Kenny in a bit of a pickle as it will be difficult to discipline Mr Deasy as one of the dissident’s key complaints was that the Taoiseach cannot take criticism without over reacting.

Whatever the truth of the Seanad stitch-up the mood in the Fine Gael parliamentary party is certainly turning ugly.

How different from the ploughing crowd which is generally too nice to give an arm-chancing politico a rough ride, so a cry from a middle-aged woman on sight of the Taoiseach that: “Oh. My. God. It’s Enda! Sure, now hasn’t that made the day?” was delivered without any irony at all.

Two younger woman involuntarily caught up in the throng were less enthusiastic: “Will we get a selfie with Enda?” said one, to which her friend replied: “Nah, I’d rather go and see the cows.”

But it was all smiles in the Fine Gael tent where Mr Kenny bumped into former Mayo GAA player Stephen “Horse” Sweeney, before offering the press some baked fancies, imploring: “Go on — have your cake and eat it.”

Considering that is exactly what Mr Kenny seemed to try — and spectacularly fail to do — with the appointment of John McNulty to IMMA so he would look better on paper for the cultural panel of the Seanad, the reporters politely declined the offer.

And with that the Taoiseach was whisked out of the easygoing embrace of the country carnival and into the uneasy distaste of many in his own party about what they see as a slide into stroke politics, but without the slickness that was a forte of Fianna Fáil.

Perhaps Mr Kenny should count himself lucky he got to mingle with Ms Walsh, because as the Seanad row continues to gather momentum it will be hard for Mr Kenny to emerge from this one smelling of roses.