On the Town: 'Are you an existentialist bootboy?" asked the poet Paul Durcan. "I'm an existentialist bootboy!" he roared. The gathering of poets and writers at Eason Hanna's Bookshop on Dublin's Dawson Street waited to hear more as Durcan launched Red Mist - Roy Keane & the Football Civil War by Conor O'Callaghan.
"I dwelled in Cork once upon a time," Durcan continued. "Awful place, gulag . . . Walking up and down in the Red Mist," he recalled.
"I taught Roy a thing or two, turned him into a regular little Ronaldo." And thus, the poet gave full flight to his poet's licence.
O'Callaghan's book, he said, "is a must read book for anyone interested in the history of contemporary Ireland".
O'Callaghan said: "It's about memories, rumours. When everybody had an opinion. Roy should be shot, he should be made Irish president . . . In retrospect, I realised just how comical the whole thing was."
Accompanying O'Callaghan in the celebration of the publication of his first prose book was his wife and fellow poet, Vona Groarke, and their two children, Tommy (8) and Eve (7).
Literary figures included David Marcus and his wife, writer Ita Daly, and poet Brendan Kennelly, whose next book, Familiar Strangers, will be published shortly.
Poet Jean O'Brien said her recently published third collection, Reach, is "about the reach of family, of past, of present".
Others at the reception included poet and publisher Peter Fallon, writer Chris Binchy and poet Siobhan Cambpell, writer in residence at Airfield Trust in south Co Dublin. Cellist and writer Mary Barnecutt is preparing for the celebrations surrounding the accession of 10 states to the EU next Saturday, when she plays at Áras an Uachtaráin as part of the Alpha String Quartet. Her friend, Dr Fionnuala Dillane, was dashing off to choir practice with The Mornington Singers. They will be competing at the Cork Choral Festival over the May bank holiday, she said.
Red Mist - Roy Keane & The Football Civil War, by Conor O'Callaghan is published by Bloomsbury