In Kenmare at noon on Friday, presenter Savannah Guthrie opened NBC’s long-running Today show broadcast fully for the first ever time from outside the USA with a reference to how lucky they were to have seen two rainbows that morning.
Then it was on to the news of the day in the United States – the Oregon shootings.
The popular US morning show had been transported with crew, presenters and equipment to Co Kerry in a large logistics operation involving 20 pallets of equipment, dozens of personnel and all seven presenters.
Tourism Ireland, which sponsored the operation, would not say how much it cost. But as far as the overseas marketing organisation was concerned, the proverbial pot of gold had already been found at the end of one rainbow. And the second pot would surely follow.
The show had a daily audience reach of 30 million in the US and Friday’s show broadcast with clips from all over Ireland.
The show went out at noon, but it was an earlier start for the crew who had flown in after Thursday’s US broadcast.
The “media pen” in front of the specially built stage on the banks of the Sheen river heard Jenna Bush, daughter of president George and Laura Bush, practise her cúpla focal – in particular how to properly pronounce Coláiste Íde, the girls’ all-Irish secondary school in Dingle.
She also wanted to tell us how near Ireland was to the US
“From the east coast of America to here is a quick trip and I hope our viewers get to see that,” she said of the seven-hour journey she slept through.
This was from New York to Texas, she notes.
Jenna was in green; many of the crew sported wax coats, with the odd sprinkling of an Aran sweater.
Links with Ireland were emerging in surprising places. Al Roker, veteran weather forecaster and the longest anchor with the Today show, said there was an absolute “grá” for Ireland in the US. And he revealed an Irish ancestry few knew about.
Dressed in green cords – he favours the colour anyway – Roker told how his mother’s grandmother was a Smith from Ireland. She had worked as a domestic servant in Boston and married his great-grandfather, a freed slave, in 1870.
“A black man and an Irish woman in Boston in 1870, that was unusual,” he said.
Ireland was very like the US, Roker said. There was the attachment to the land of generations and also the number of immigrants adding to the culture.
“It’s very American. We all have similar stories,” he said.
Crafts, including pottery from Kenmare and local sweets, were being lined up to be showcased during the four hours, which was swinging to clips from all over the country from Doolin to Donegal and Dublin to Belfast.
A large number of Today fans had travelled with the show, and local schools were brought into the audience.
Meanwhile, downtown Kenmare was cordoned off from 1pm to allow a live feed from Henry Street. US flags flew over shop fronts as an off-season autumn bonanza arrived in the heritage town.
This, too, was part of Tourism Ireland’s game plan.
“Doing it in October was really important to us. We wanted to showcase Ireland as a year-round destination,” said Siobhan McManamy, Tourism Ireland’s director of markets.
She paid tribute to the strong local support, where the event has been greeted like the Sam Maguire. “Kerry always pulls it out of the bag,” McManamy said.