Jeffrey Archer was a controversial choice as guest speaker for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce Christmas lunch. Frank McNally reports.
But, conceding that there had been critics in the press, the president of the chamber, David Pierce, announced proudly that the former MP would donate his fee to charity, and added: "I hope that shuts them up".
Optimism springs eternal. Lord Archer's most famous attempt to shut up journalists - his 1987 libel action against the Daily Star - ended badly when he was convicted of perjury and forced to return his ill-gotten damages. But God loves a trier, and so, clearly, does the Chamber of Commerce.
The group's chief executive, Gina Quinn, said the invitation was not an endorsement of the notion that crime pays. He was simply chosen to provide "a bit of colour" after serious speakers, she added.
Also, having experienced both bankruptcy and prison in his 64-year-old life, he was an example that "there is a way up again".
Lord Archer had exercised the right to remain silent during a brief pre-lunch photo-session on the Grand Canal. And despite delivering a speech on the three subjects people most associated with him - "books, politics, and prison" - he managed to say very little in this either.
In a joky, well-worn patter, his nearest brush with candour came when he described his time in prison as "without question the worst two years of my life".
The nearest he came to controversy was in crediting Ireland as the first nation to recognise his literary talent.
If a country had to claim responsibility for that, it would probably be in an anonymous phonecall to the BBC, using a recognised codeword. But Archer insisted his books first topped the best-sellers list here, and the world followed.
A rugby enthusiast as well as Hibernophile, he paid tribute to the courtesy of rugby crowds here. The Irish were now "almost the only nation on earth who remain silent" for opposition kickers, he said. We were an example to most of the rugby world, and all of football.
He was warmly applauded.
But on the many questions that hang over him, Archer's silence had been more profound than anything Jonny Wilkinson would experience while lining up a conversion at Lansdowne Road, after a last-minute try had already won the match for England.