OnTheTown: It was a night to "close your eyes and make a wish" at the Point as Dubliners attending the opening of The Ha'penny Bridge were lulled into a dreamy mood.
"Ha'penny wishes can come true when lovers wish together, holding hands together," sang Stephen Ashfield and Annalene Beechey. The show's creator, Alastair McGuckian, and his wife, Marjery, waited on the red carpet to greet President Mary McAleese and her husband, Dr Martin McAleese. The McGuckians' sons, Ciarán and Garrett, and their daughters, Rosheen and Mary, were in attendance also.
"It's a special night because the whole story is set in an area just behind here - Gardiner Street, Foley Street and Amiens Street," said McGuckian, who spent a long time researching "the lives of families in the inner city in 1922, largely to see if the story could actually happen".
The businessman, who set up the internationally successful Masstock farming system with his brother, Paddy, in 1968, started taking "serious" piano lessons in his teens. "I started putting down notes on paper when I was stuck in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. They [the characters] kept me from being lonely. It grew like that."
According to co-producer Richard Tierney, McGuckian "lived in the air with those characters. They flew around the world with him".
Among those who came to the opening in Dublin were Fred Astaire's daughter, Ava, who lives in Cork; John McColgan, producer of the musical The Wiremen, currently playing at the Gaiety, and his brother, Gerry; Gate director Michael Colgan and actor Bryan Murray. Singer Eleanor Shanley, from Keshcarrigan, Co Leitrim, who will be doing an Irish tour in August, was there with her manager, John Masterson.