Our worldwide campaign for a two-year seat on the UN Security Council, which was conducted with extraordinary vigour - indeed, some would say it was over the top, hardly worth the effort and caused neglect in other areas - ended in spectacular success a year ago when we headed the poll.
On Monday, we reach the pinnacle when we take the presidency of the security council in New York for the month of October. But might we be better off without this centre-stage role? Could we be sorry when our term is over?
The last time we were on SECCO, the Falklands War broke out. We weren't in the chair, but as one of the 10 non-permanent members on the 15-strong council we had to take a stand on matters that might have been better avoided. Taoiseach Charlie Haughey gave instructions for a pro-Argentine line. The fallout caused huge damage to Ireland's relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She was furious at our failure to support every UK position, and what little give there was on the North vanished. Indeed, at one stage, relations could have collapsed entirely. Could we end up in a similar pickle now? That occasion was probably our most dangerous UN moment, but we did have a more spectacular incident. Originally blocked by Russia in 1945 because of our wartime neutrality, we got in in 1955 and were so thrilled that it is said the Department of Finance suggested we shut down what few embassies we had (London, Paris, Washington, the Vatican, Rome, Franco's Madrid, Lisbon, Bonn), because the UN would cover all our foreign requirements.
In any case, we took our membership so seriously that the UN became the focus of our foreign policy. The minister, Frank Aitken, spent most of the annual three-month general assembly session in New York and much of his department decamped too. Aitken made quite an impact with his interest in nuclear disarmament and decolonisation, but it was when Freddy Boland, then permanent representative, chaired the general assembly in 1960 that the drama occurred.
For the first time in the history of the UN, the head of a world power was ruled out of order and stopped at the height of a heated speech about the seating of China. Boland ruled Nikita Khrushchev out of order when the president of the Soviet Union called Franco the hangman of the Spanish people who was supported by the US because they had bases in Spain. Boland hit his gavel so hard and so often that it broke. The Russian took off his shoe and banged the heel on the desk. It was sensational stuff. The two shook hands the following week and Khruschchev sent Boland a crate of wine.