By now it is a familiar summer tableau. An Irish village besieged by burly bouncers, security cordons erected overnight and bemused locals passing on their best wishes via the tabloids to a couple they have never met. At least this time, the ("lavish, romantic, fairytale, touching, private, etc, etc" - copyright Hello! magazine) celebrity wedding of the year features one of our own. And it's not every day James Bond gets hitched in an 800-year-old abbey in the county of Mayo.
The world's media will provide a welcome, if fleeting, economic boost to the areas around Ballintubber Abbey and Ashford Castle in Cong, when Pierce Brosnan (49), aka 007, marries his girlfriend of seven years, Keely Shaye-Smith (37), later today.
The Navan-born actor has attempted to get married in his home country three times already but had to cancel on each occasion. The last time they made arrangements his fiancee became pregnant with their second child Paris Beckett. Before that Brosnan's 17-year-old son Sean, from his marriage to his first wife Cassandra who died of ovarian cancer in 1991, was injured in a car crash. The original wedding plans were scuppered when Keely was trapped in the couple's home in Malibu after floods caused by El Nino.
We can only guess how the Brosnan wedding will look. Will Keely walk down the aisle to the Bond theme tune wearing Ursula Andress-style swimwear while Pierce enters the church through a secret passage stuffed with high explosives? Only the next edition of Hello! will have the answers as they have paid a reputed six-figure sum for exclusive rights to the wedding snaps. Sorry.
The last time Pierce Brosnan made a high-profile visit to these shores it was to be given the freedom of Navan in November 1999. Security was not so tight. There were no council officials sworn to secrecy in the manner of the actor's four hugely successful Bond movies. Brosnan stood with his mother and waxed lyrical about how all Navan people had courage. Recently the actor spoke about the prospect of getting married here: "God willing, I'll take my girl home to Ireland. I want us to have a lovely, romantic, great oul' shindig."
The, ahem, "shindig" is rumoured to be costing Brosnan around a million quid. The Chieftains have been confirmed as the wedding band and while the celebrity guest quota will not be high, Sylvester Stallone is thought to be making the trip. Unlike the last celebrity couple who celebrated their nuptials on these shores, Pierce and Keely will not sit on thrones during the reception, a la Posh and Becks. Brosnan is, however, set to toast his new wife with Guinness instead of champagne.
Brosnan spent only the first 11 years of his life in Ireland, before leaving for the UK, but he has said his Irishness, and particularly his belief in the Catholic church, are still important to him. He has also revealed that he possesses a "dark, Irish brooding side" and suffers periods of self-doubt about his acting talent.
"I'm pretty much a loner," he has revealed. "It's not in my nature to have really close friends. I don't think I have had one ever." Something his 100-plus guests will no doubt be interested to hear. He has been described variously as witty, self-deprecating and complex. The Navan boy's father left the family home when he was a youngster and after being raised by his grandmother Brosnan was sent to England to be with his mother at the age of 11.
At school he shone at English and art, later becoming an illustrator for Harrods among other jobs, and in the 70s he studied at the drama centre in London.
By then he had already met his first wife Cassie, and he travelled to the States at his wife's instigation with her two children from a former relationship Christopher and Charlotte, who Brosnan later adopted. Once States-side he consolidated an early television role in The Manions of America with the lead in spoof detective series Remington Steele.
Since the death of his first wife he has committed himself to her memory and to the environmental values Harris, a former Bond girl, espoused. His career continued steadily after her death, with roles in movies such as Mrs Doubtfire and Lawnmower Man. He had already won the role of Bond in the mid-80s but was unable to take it up due to contractual obligations.
It wasn't until 1994 that Brosnan stepped into the secret agent's shoes with a critically acclaimed series of Bond movies from Goldeneye to, more recently, The World is Not Enough.
Brosnan had said he would never marry again but his relationship with former television journalist Keely ShayeSmith changed all that. ("You only love twice", as one commentator put it).
The couple are said to enjoy spending time meditating at the memorial Brosnan erected to his wife's memory.
They have two children - four-year-old Dylan Thomas and baby Paris, both of whom will be present at the proceedings in Ballintubber Abbey today. "It will be a great celebration," Brosnan has said of the event, "of two people who still dream together."
