It's that time of the year when rain, Galway and horses all come together and rub shoulders for the week at the Galway Festival at Ballybrit. As usual the Fianna Fail marquee and Moons Best Dressed Person competition were the main focus of attention, apart from the horses, of course. An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, was there with Celia Larkin - there were never so many umbrellas collected in one place as when he arrived on Thursday but Bertie managed to catch the only bit of sun all day. The former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was there with his wife, Kathleen and three daughters - Kathy, Eimear and Leonie - and daughters-in-law. Other politicos included the Minister for Sport etc Jim McDaid, the most earnest Galway Races fan of them all; John O'Donoghue, the Minister for Justice; and Joe Walsh the Minister for Agriculture. Also spotted were Bill Cullen of Renault and his wife Jackie Lavin; J.P. McManus and his wife Noreen; the three Gunne brothers Pat, Niall and Andrew who have taken on their late father's tradition of taking tables at the races; Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings; Paul Kelly of Brown Thomas; David McKenna of Marlborough recruitment company; John McGoldrick of Enterprise Oil, and Michael O'Grady, the proprietor of Kirwan's Lane restaurant in Galway.
After the races each day, people headed back into town to try out Galway's latest restaurant. Called Kirbys of Cross Street, it's owned by Terry Sweeney, who is also the man behind the Schoolhouse Hotel, a trendy new hostelry in Dublin's Northumberland Road, E.J. Kings in Clifden and the new development on the huge Westwood site on the Clifden road. Meanwhile Terry's brother, John Sweeney, is the man who opened the luxurious Station House Hotel in Clifden, the first hotel opened in the town in over 30 years.
Those spotted in Kirbys included Paddy Duffy, special adviser to the Taoiseach; Angela Kerins, the new chairwoman of the National Disability Authority; Keith Finnegan, the chairman of Galway Bay FM, and Donal Connolly, the vice-president of 3 Com.