HERE'S a yarn told by a public relations practitioner - in a bar, as it happens.
Pope Francis comes to Ireland on a visit. He is greeted by the Taoiseach and the pair take a cruise around Dublin Bay.
Halfway through, the Pope is adjusting his skullcap when a sudden gust of wind blows it into the sea.
Without hesitation, the Taoiseach jumps overboard and strides firmly across the water, picks up the skullcap and walks back to the boat.
Pope Francis is delighted, but next day the headline in all the newspapers reads: "Enda Kenny can't swim."
The moral of the story is that Poor Enda gets a raw deal from the media. It's not true. Mr Kenny receives reasonably good coverage, considering he has been head of government now for five-and-half years.
I had the opportunity of telling him the Pope yarn in person and he laughed heartily, before pointing out that it had previously been told about US President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It has featured Donald Trump more recently.
Leadership challenges are grist to the mill of the media and their audience. We all love getting in touch with our inner Machiavelli to figure out what is really going on behind the scenes, leading to the final Et tu, Brute? dénouement.
Kenny and Gerry Adams may have little in common but the pair of them are the subject of much speculation at the moment: how long will they continue in their present jobs?
In party terms, Kenny is having a rougher time than Adams, with his leadership openly questioned by Fine Gael backbenchers.
Sinn Féin, on the other hand, tends to exercise a level of party discipline that puts the Bolsheviks to shame.
But whereas Adams may be having a quiet time internally, his alleged misdeeds in the past are again making the headlines, despite his repeated denials.
There is an inevitability about it at this stage that is reminiscent of the grouse-shooting season, except that the latter only lasts a few months.
I noticed Denis Donaldson at Stormont's Castle Buildings when I reported on the protracted talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
Whereas I found other Sinn Féin officials quite media-friendly, Donaldson kept his distance. I recall overhearing him say to a friend who asked him how he was getting on: "Not bad for someone living under British occupation."
It's shocking to think that someone I saw in person, laughing and joking with his companions, could be shot dead at an isolated cottage in Donegal some years later.
It was equally startling when he revealed himself to be a British agent four months earlier, although he seems to have been gathering intelligence for the IRA at the same time.
BBC Spotlight is a highly-respected programme with a notable track-record and the reports it carries have to be considered very seriously.
Anything that helps the authorities to ascertain who killed Donaldson or, indeed, sanctioned that brutal deed can only be welcomed by peace-loving democrats.
Adams denies involvement and even rejects claims that he himself was ever an IRA member. Meanwhile, others assert that he has been the Mister Big of the Provisional movement for decades and nothing significant happens without his consent and approval.
We are faced with conflicting accounts of the actual assassination. Was it dissident republicans, or mainstream Provos acting in response to rumblings from South Armagh? Was it a "punishment" or did somebody, somewhere, just want to shut him up?
And can you trust the word of a self-acknowledged but anonymous informer: a problematic source by definition? He has already deceived his republican associates over an extended period, so how can we assume he is telling the truth now?
And can we accept his perception of the Provo power-structure when he failed to catch on to the fact that himself and Donaldson, with whom he had regular contact apparently, were playing on the same team of "secret squirrels"?
Then there are the assertions that undercover agents played an "immense" and possibly decisive part in persuading the IRA to call off its campaign: maybe John Hume and David Trimble ought to share their Nobel Prizes and those who emphasise the roles of Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Mo Mowlam, Bill Clinton, Albert Reynolds, Father Alec Reid and George Mitchell should be told "the `touts' were the real players".
No doubt the dissidents will convert this to propaganda gold.
Perhaps after all, there is some merit in the notion of a truth recovery process where people on all sides could reveal what they had done, without fear of prosecution.
As against that, Ireland is a small place and reprisals would be inevitable, as the Donaldson killing proved in gruesome terms.
