WE'VE had Black Mondays and Blue Mondays, Meltdown Mondays and Manic Mondays.

At the start of another seismic week, yesterday was best described as a Mother-of-God Monday.

The first day of the working week (for those still in possession of gainful employment, that is), and the Irish populace had a lot to swallow along with their morning cup of tea.

Across Europe, banks were tottering like freshers at a free bar. our own stock market looked to be going over the cliff like the roadrunner, local water supplies in the south and west were found to be riddled with lead, and even the Indian summer had vamoosed.

And then, to top the dreadful day, the Taoiseach popped up in Athlone and uttered the R-word -- in fact, he used it twice in succession. He had actually used it during an interview in New York last week -- until then, he, along with his R-phobic Finance Minister, had preferred to stick to less scarifying epithets.

Yet, despite things being up in a heap, Brian Cowen was quite serene when he strolled over to talk to the media at the Sheraton Hotel in Athlone. He was in town to launch an international conference hosted by the Border Midland and Western regional assembly.

He and his Cabinet (with the odd gaffe-prone exception) have been doing their best swan impression in recent weeks -- sailing smoothly on top, paddling like hell underneath -- and Brian calmly dropped the R-word with an ease that suggested he'd been practising for a while.

"The Central Statistics Office made the point that the fact is that we are in a contraction over the last two quarters; that a recession has occurred in Ireland," he stated baldly.

"But that's part of the economic cycle -- we can come out of this recession, and we can work our way to ensure that we position ourselves so when the upturn comes, we can take on what we took on before," he added, wielding the stick (recession) and carrot (upturn).

Bedlam

But, despite all the banking bedlam, when the Taoiseach began his speech to the assembled delegates from Spain, Italy, France and Germany, it was clear that his other huge headache -- Lisbon -- was foremost in his mind, prompted perhaps by the fact that he's due to pop over to Paris for lunch with Nicolas Sarkozy tomorrow.

He spoke off-the-cuff -- something he's done very rarely since becoming Taoiseach -- for the first 20 minutes of his address, and discussed, at some length, Ireland's relationship with Europe. Or, more pertinently, Ireland's potential dependency on Europe's monetary mothership.

Referring with admirable understatement to the "turbulence" in the money markets, Brian hailed "the fact that we are members of the euro and have access to the European Central Bank, and the assistance that it gives us in ensuring stability in our financial sector".

"That's something that we in Ireland need to reflect upon, in terms of what is the role of Europe in Ireland, how important is Europe to Ireland," he added pointedly.

He continued to heap praise on the towering edifice that is Europe's Big Bucks HQ, which has been taking in the huddled masses of misunderstood money moguls who have been playing fast and loose with the coffers of various nations.

"I've come to understand, in a very real way, the significant role the European Central Bank has played in assisting governments and the financial sector to withstand that turbulence that is presently worldwide," he explained humbly.

"It's an indication and a reminder to people in Ireland as to how vital Europe has been in upholding our national interest."

Brian mentioned his upcoming EU council meetings, at which discussions over Ireland's 'No' vote will get star billing.

After studying results of the recent poll analysis of the result, he reckons that Irish people just don't know how brill the EU is. "The detailed knowledge of the interaction of how the institutions work, of their relevance to the day-to-day lives of people, is unfortunately quite rudimentary," he concluded, though admitting that this was the government's fault.

"We have not sold the message," he conceded.

But in Brian's speech on Mother-of-God Monday, the message was clear: we'd better be nice to Europe, or there'll be no bail-out if our banking system goes to hell in a handcart. The closest we'll come to European co-operation will be when we're building cardboard houses out of Prada and Christian Louboutin shoe-boxes.

Mother of God is right.