A packet of Sweeneys

It was an occasion for family, friends - and film cameras - when Eamonn Sweeney launched his new book, There's Only One Red Army…

It was an occasion for family, friends - and film cameras - when Eamonn Sweeney launched his new book, There's Only One Red Army, in Waterstones on Wednesday. The lenses - which were aimed at Eamonn himself as he read but also at writer Dermot Bolger as he introduced the book - belonged to RTE, and they were filming a new literature series called Under Cover. Eamonn will shortly be finding himself on the other side of the camera when his previous book, Waiting For The Healer - for which he wrote the screen play - starts filming. In the meantime, he is heading over to an artist's retreat in the US to start work on his next novel.Eamonn's father, Joe Sweeney, travelled with his partner Ita McGrath from Sligo for the occasion to join a large writing contingent that included novelists Colm Toibin and Anthony Glavin; Eamonn's partner, novelist Antonia Logue (pictured right with Eamonn) and her brother, Hugh Logue; Glenroe actor Kate Thompson, whose novel on the theatre world comes out next year, and Mary Pat Kelly, the Irish-American-nun-turned-Scorcese-biographer-turned-novelist whose book Special Intentions is out next week.