On the town: When was the last time you cried while listening to the radio Christopher Gray, a diehard fan of RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany show, is no emotional introvert.
"I've been listening to the programme for over 20 years. It makes me weep with nostalgia," he said at this week's book launch of Sunday Miscellany: A Selection 2004-2006.
But he's not the only one to have been touched by the poignant essays, poems, reportage and other fascinating slices of life featured on the weekly programme. At a packed launch on a particularly rainy
evening this week, even journalist Vincent Browne spoke of being "enchanted by radio". Speaking in a quieter, more sensitive tone than he's known for, Browne praised the "beautiful poetry of Sunday Miscellany", which has been broadcast over three decades.
"Sunday Miscellany is about the ordinary told through the extraordinary tellers of stories," said producer Cliodhna Ní Anluain, who also edited the new collection. Currently on maternity leave, Ní Anluain said she was delighted to have "had another baby - as well as a book".
Mike Murphy may not be your average pin-up, but he held a special place in actor Clodagh O'Donoghue's heart as a child. In a piece about childhood crushes, O'Donoghue describes the tribulations of young love.
Actor Jennifer O'Dea read from her humorous essay about childhood memories of May, the month of Mary, while barrister and poet John O'Donnell described the day John Lennon died. Afterwards, O'Donnell confessed how, as a young boy, he burst into tears when he received a photograph of the iconic musician that Christmas - something his family still tease him about.
A selection of contributors read excerpts, including Cyril Kelly, Gerald Dawe and Cathy Power-Hernandez. Steve MacDonogh wrote a piece about going to school with legendary songwriter Nick Drake, while the editor of Magill, Eamon Delaney, contributed a piece about growing up in a bohemian household, which is part of a memoir he is writing.
Also present was the Dutch author and soprano, Judith Mok, who is currently writing her second novel in English. Others at the launch were Anthony Glavin, Senator Joe O'Toole, poet Gerard Smyth, actor and broadcaster Denis Tuohy, poet Mary O'Donnell, author Gavin Corbett, and Catherine Foley, a journalist with The Irish Times who will be taking up a writer-inresidence post in the Irish College, Paris, next month. Many more fans and contributors paid tribute to the "national institution" that is Sunday Miscellany.
Sorcha Hamilton
The right place at the right time
There was music and drinking but no dancing to celebrate the opening of A Time and Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life, in the National Gallery of Ireland. As a quartet played politely, the crowds sampled canapés and the speeches began, colourful scenes of rowdy markets, big-boned hurlers and riotous ceilís awaited viewing upstairs.
The Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue, opened the exhibition and said the works demonstrated "the importance of recreational activities in Irish life". But before you could say "arts, sports and tourism", he had rushed off to a vote in the Dáil. Lochlann Quinn, chairman of the gallery's board of governors and guardians, took to the stage, noting how far Ireland has come since the days of poverty depicted in many of the show's paintings.
Among the crowd was the family of celebrated Irish artist Charles Lamb, whose Pattern Day in Connemara is a highlight of the show. Lamb's daughter, Láillí, remembered how her father, "who always wore tweeds", decided to go to Connemara in 1921 to paint.
"He loved skies - you can see in his works that they are almost always one-third foreground and two-thirds sky," she said.
Láillí, who was accompanied by her husband Éamon de Buitléar, said her father was a great storyteller, "but he wasn't much taller than me - only five foot three or so".
Fionnuala Croke, head of exhibitions at the gallery, praised the work of Dr Brendan Rooney, curator of the exhibition.
"Because it's a thematic show, as opposed to a chronological one, it is very accessible. I think it's going to be very popular," she said.
Also present was the British ambassador to Ireland, David Reddaway, who is settling in well to his new home in Dublin but couldn't decide which was his favourite work at the show. Other guests included
Beckett biographer Anthony Cronin and John O'Mahony, chair of the National Museum. Many admired the scope and variety of the paintings and, for an exhibition about Irish social life, we were lucky there was no mention of the "craic".
A Time and Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life runs until Jan 28 at the National Gallery of Ireland.
Sorcha Hamilton
Surprise for the senior 'bencher'
It was, said Maurice Gaffney SC, "the most wonderful night of my life". What he had expected to be an ordinary dinner of the Honourable Society of King's Inns, at which he would be the senior "bencher", had in fact been planned as a surprise celebration of his "continuing happiness and good health" on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
Former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, Tánaiste Michael McDowell, and many barristers and judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court were there to show their affection and respect for a man still practising after more than 50 years at the Bar.
A Mass at St Michan's on Halston Street was said by Gaffney's brother-inlaw, Fr Aidan Lehane, assisted by the barristers' choir, after which the congregation moved to the King's Inns for dinner.
After the reading of a warm letter of congratulations from the President, Mary McAleese, Mr Justice Esmond Smyth (once Gaffney's "devil") led the speeches. The famously modest guest of
honour was suitably flattered.
"Praise is something that is difficult to shut one's ears to. Despite yourself, you like it," he said. "It was unwarranted, of course, but warmly received."
Also among the 220 diners on Tuesday night were members of Gaffney's family, including his daughter, Patricia Judge, and his wife, barrister Leonie Gaffney.
"What keeps him going is his love for the law," she said. "He is well past the retirement age, he just doesn't think about it. As long as the briefs keep coming, he'll keep going."
A picture of the Gaffneys and the 1953 Law Students Debating Society hung from the ceiling, leading one guest to remark that it was the only time the teetotal Gaffney had been seen "swinging from the chandeliers".
Among the many others in attendance were Gaffney's great friend, the former attorney general, Patrick Connolly SC, and current Attorney General Rory Brady; Seamus MacKenna SC and chairman
of the Bar Council Turlough O'Donnell SC; and the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John L Murray. Much of the credit for organising the evening went to King's Inns Under Treasurer Camilla McAleese. Shane Hegarty
Banter of literary lions
The last thing you would expect to hear at the launch of a biography of two Victorian political giants is a string of humorous football analogies. That is, of course, unless the man doing the launching is Eamon Dunphy.
"I used to play for Millwall, 'the Lions', so when I first heard the title of Richard's book I thought it was going to be about me, you know, the Lion in the Unicorn," joked Dunphy, in reference to one of Dublin's better-known restaurants.
He was speaking at the launch of Richard Aldous's book, The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli in Hughes & Hughes bookshop in Dún Laoghaire this week. The footballing banter did not end there. Spotting Dr Hugh Brady in the crowd, Dunphy dubbed the president of UCD "the Roman Abramovich of Irish academia, leading UCD into the premier league".
Dunphy was launching the book for Aldous, his one-time Newstalk stand-in, who presented Dunphy's morning show on a number of occasions.
Aldous, head of history and archives at UCD, has also been a political analyst for RTÉ, and a
number of broadcasting colleagues joined him on the night, including Mark Little from RTÉ's
Prime Time.
Irish Times journalist John Waters was also at the launch on Monday night, as was UCD's deputy president, Dr Philip Nolan. Aldous was also joined by his wife, Kathryn, and their two-year-old daughter.
According to Aldous, the story of ardent political rivals Disraeli and Gladstone is a familiar one but one which needs retelling. "Richard makes something that is very important, very accessible," praised Dunphy.
The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli, by Richard Aldous, is published by Arrow Books
Rachel Dugan