For many, it officially launched Christmas. A performance of Handel's Messiah at the National Concert Hall was the "real start to Christmas", said Joe Brennan, of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who was on his way into the auditorium to hear Our Lady's Choral Society perform under the baton of Proinnsías Ó Duinn.
The choir was in party mood as it has just issued its first CD (of the Messiah, of course), with the National Concert Orchestra. Ó Duinn, who has been conducting the choir in its performances of the Messiah every year since 1976, said: "It's very theatrical and I treat it in a theatrical away. Handel fell out with his librettist, who wanted it treated in a religious way, but Handel was an opera composer."
The work of one of the choristers, artist Pauline Scott, who is honorary secretary of the Watercolour Society of Ireland, which recently held its 148th annual exhibition in Dún Laoghaire County Hall, is featured on the CD's cover. It depicts the scene of the oratorio's first performance in Fishamble Street, Dublin. Other choristers included Treasa Coady of Townhouse Press, John Lamont, chief executive of Beaumont Hospital, and Liam McAuley of this newspaper.
After the CD was launched by RTÉ's Myles Dungan, members of the audience started to take their seats, among them Cathal Goan, managing director of RTÉ television, and his wife, sean-nós singer Maighréad Ní Dhomhnaill.
Gráinne Millar, programming manager of Temple Bar Properties, was in attendance too, preparing for a busy week of farewells to Tammy Dillon, who is off to New York after her tenure as TBP chief executive. Her colleagues have commissioned a painting by Willie McKeown as a parting gift for her, said Millar. Go n-éirí go geal léi ar a bóthar.