Junior minister Mary Hanafin and her father, Senator Des Hanafin, at his 70th birthday party in the Anner Hotel, Thurles, last Sunday.
Known as a wild man in his younger days, Hanafin amused his guests with tales of his derring-do. He brought the Anner, he said, as a private house, turned it into a hotel and then drank it out; he had marched in full of pride but was eventually marched out with a sheriff at this side. He told how during one Seanad campaign he and Michael Purcell, cattle exporter, canvassed a county councillor who had two mangy old cattle outside the house. Purcell told him if he gave his man the vote he would take them off him for £100 each - huge money then. As the councillor hesitated, Purcell said he would be back in two weeks to collect them. Still the vote wasn't forthcoming. The councillor then admitted that a rival had been there the week before and had also offered him £100 a head, but had said nothing about coming back for the beasts.
The guests being entertained for lunch included staff from Leinster House, which Hanafin first entered in 1968, medical personnel from the time of his near-fatal car accident, and political colleagues such as Brian Lenihan jnr, (whose father opened the hotel), Pat Carey, Ann Ormonde and Labhras O Murchu. Then there was music and dancing.