THIRTY years ago a young Irish student came to New York and worked on a construction site in Manhattan for the summer on a student visa.

He stayed with his aunt and uncle in Long Island, and they remember him coming home every evening covered in grime and dirt from the site.

"He never complained," remembered his uncle Peter Nolan. "Even though the work was hard, he was up for it."

Thirty years later the young lad, now 48, was back in New York. These days he is the taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland.

Brian Cowen is far removed from the building site now, but the same grit and appetite for hard work has stood him well in his political career.

In fact last Wednesday morning he was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, ringing the bell to commence trading in the greatest financial market on earth. It is hardly something he could have imagined himself doing all those years ago.

Earlier, in a nearby breakfast room, he had addressed a top-flight group of Wall Street professionals and wowed them with his knowledge of the American economy. Brian Cowen has come a long way.

He is certainly popular in New York. Over 400 Irish Americans showed up for a meet and greet at the Irish Consulate in midtown Manhattan.

The unprecedented crowd took over the vast ground floor of the building instead of the function room at the consulate upstairs which would have been utterly overcrowded.

It is a very big deal when a new leader from Ireland comes to America. When that leader has New York roots and connections he is bound to get an even warmer welcome.

Not since Eamon de Valera, who was born here, has there been an Irish leader with such close New York roots. It is no coincidence that Cowen's first major trip abroad was to a city he knows well and enjoys.

Unlike his predecessor, Bertie Ahern, who focused on Washington where he was most at home, Cowen has a clear preference for the Big Apple and the Irish community he once mixed with.

He was clearly in his element during his New York trip. He left Ireland encumbered by a slowing economy and uproar over the vote to shoot down the Lisbon Treaty. He arrived to a New York that was holding out its fabled hand of friendship for a former resident whose mother emigrated here for a time.

Cowen did not disappoint the crowds throughout his trip. He stayed at every event until he had shaken almost every hand, swapping stories and memories with strangers and friends who felt immediately at home with him.

He has an ability to be at home with both Wall Street tycoons and friends of neighbors from Offaly. It is a rare gift in a politician.

Cowen is the anti-politician in many ways. The rumpled suits and occasional gruff manner would be the despair of American consultants, but he connects with people in a unique way.

Whatever the troubles at home, this was a good time for him to come to America. Cowen has a direct style that Americans like, and a sense of the history and the issues that face the Irish community here.

He got off the mark well with the Irish groups who deal with the issue of the undocumented. He is unlike many other politicians with no experience of America. Cowen can relate to what it is like to work on a construction site, and to live in fear of being arrested and deported if immigration agents come calling.

Cowen will look back on his first U.S. trip as taoiseach with much satisfaction. He has hit the ground running in a relationship that is both important personally and for Ireland. No doubt he will be back often.