Dublin plays host this weekend to an extremely high-powered - and secretive - international gathering. Paul Cullen went along for a look.
Take the world's first four-minute miler and the man who discovered DNA, and then add a former US president.
Throw in the leading pioneer into artificial intelligence, a few heads of state and a sprinkling of a dozen Nobel prizewinners. For good measure, add the scientist who discovered the quark, the first round-the-world balloonist and the woman described as "Ireland's leading living novelist" (Edna O'Brien, apparently).
Then mix these luminaries with the "brightest of the bright" on scholarships in leading US universities, and what do you get?
The answer is the Academy of Achievement, and the venue for this meeting of great minds is Dublin, this weekend. If you haven't heard about the academy, don't worry - they probably aren't interested in the likes of you, anyway.
For a start, the academy is normally based in the US, and has come to Dublin for a few days only. Then you'd probably need an IQ of massive proportions to be even considered for membership.
Just as "high-powered" doesn't do justice to the calibre of those who gathered in the Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge for the opening of the "Achievement Summit", "publicity-shy" doesn't quite capture the organisation's attitude towards the media.
Journalists covering the event on Thursday had never seen anything like this before. Their inquiries were directed to a "control room" where staff declined to provide any information, save to say that Bill Clinton was coming.
The academy's website lists George Bush senior, Colin Powell and Mikhail Gorbachev in its Hall of Fame, but gives little indication of who is behind the organisation. It sells videos on such topics as "Perseverance and the American Dream" and "What is a Hero?"
Having turned up as directed 2.5 hours in advance of the event, the media were greeted by a slew of burly secret service types with meaningful bulges under their jackets. Fair enough, we thought, in these post-September 11th days.
But then events took a surreal turn, as all attempts to garner information were rebuffed. The conversation went something like this:
Journalist: At what time does this start?
Secret service type: I am not at liberty to disclose that, sir.
Journalist: When does it finish?
SST: I cannot say, sir.
Journalist: Can we interview people attending?
SST: You are not at liberty to interview anyone here. This is a closed event, and you have been invited here tonight as a courtesy to the Irish press.
Journalist: Do you have a name?
SST: I do not, sir.
Journalist: Then how do we know whether you are the person to talk to?
SST: You do not know. Sir.
And so on. Then the media were taken through the kitchens of the hotel and corralled in the ballroom for several hours, until the participants arrived from dinner. No one was allowed to leave, except for supervised toilet visits.
When the "Achievement Summit" got under way, it turned out to be part Oscar ceremony, part evangelical rally. Two of the best preachers in the business, Bill Clinton and Bono, were there to give pep talks and the Irish rockstar and the visiting Latvian President were given gongs for their services to humanity.
One of the academy's main benefactors, Kathleen B. Reynolds, explained the organisation's purpose to the scholarship students present.
"We have arranged for your paths to cross those of some of the most accomplished people on the planet. Their lives can influence yours."
But Ms Reynolds, who was described as having revolutionised the student loan market in the US, said it was "the journey, not the achievements" that counted.
She recounted a series of against-all-odds tales that were straight out of the Hollywood script factory - the ghetto child who goes on to win a Nobel prize, the woman who endures exile and imprisonment and becomes the first female prime minister of an Islamic country, the Irish lad with a Protestant father and Catholic mother who becomes a rockstar.
So far, so harmless. The organisers might lack humour and civility, but their idea of passing on genius by osmosis owes something to Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman and his bicycle.
It took an Asian student to point out to Clinton and Bono that while talking about saving the world was all very well, doing so from the luxury of a five-star hotel involved no little waste of money, which could be used where it was needed.
The real work of this "summit" is going on this weekend behind closed doors. An unknown number of heads of state attended a function last night in Dublin Castle - their number almost certainly included the head of the Afghan interim administration, Hamid Karzai, and the Colombian President, Andres Pastrana. Gorbachev and Bhutto were also expected.
It's unlikely they are talking about the weather.