IT'S called automobilism and this little-known condition was celebrated on St Valentine's Day in Dublin this week. It has to do with cars, love and men (or mostly men). Friends and members of the Royal Irish Automobile Club gathered on Dawson Street to talk engines (love of mankind was never on the agenda) and launch a new fund which will benefit those injured in motorsport events. Eddie Jordan "just might happen to drop in", Peter Jenkins, chair of the new Irish Motorsport Benevolent Fund, said. Wilf Fitzsimmons, president of the RIAC, was present. He first raced in 1934 in a Ford. What model? we ask (feigning expertise). "I'm too old to remember," says the 84-year-old, not rising to the bait at all.
Charles McCollum, treasurer of the new fund, has come down from Belfast for the party. He's even taken off his Anglican priest's collar for the occasion. And sports broadcaster George Hamilton, another northerner, has come in from RTE to officiate. Dermot Quigley, of the Leinster Motor Club, says his father used to race in the late 1920s. "It's one of those hereditary conditions, and it's very hard to cure," he explains, looking very pleased with himself: his wife Romaine Quigley, standing nearby, says she does "help out at events".
Other motor-racing aficionados spotted at the launch included George Dixon and his wife Eleanor, Michael Fitzsimons, Reggie Redmond, Martin McCarthy and Des Large.