Never mind the weather: there were some stars in evidence at the Abbey Theatre this week. They ran in out of the drops. Umbrellas, raincoats and galoshes (well, one imaginary pair on this writer's feet) were shaken and put away before the performance began.
Stephen Rea was there in his white raincoat. Gabriel Byrne, who jetted in from New York, was setting hearts a-flutter everywhere; his film, Spider, was premièring in Cannes the following night.
Howth-based heart-throb Gay Byrne came in from that wild and windy headland with his wife, Kathleen Watkins, who was full of the news about Mary Reynolds's gold medal win at the Chelsea Flower Show for her Tearmann Sí - Celtic Sanctuary garden.
Younger actors Paschal Friel from Ballymena, Co Antrim, and Karl Shiels were all news about their roles in the film, Meeting Che Guevara and the Man from Maybury Hill, which starts shooting in June with John Hurt.
Claudia Carroll from Fair City was with Lise Ann McLaughlin, whose husband, Nick Dunning, was about to go on stage in the première of the new Gerard Stembridge play, That Was Then. Playwright Hugh Leonard was with his partner, Kathy Hayes from Philadelphia. Publicists to the stars, Gerry Lundberg and his assistant, Sinéad O'Doherty, breezed in, stylish and unruffled as always. Nell McCafferty was with fellow journalist Mary Holland, who was delighted with the birth of her first grandchild last week -she is to be called Rosie Holland-Behal. Fáilte romhat, a chailín bhig.
And after the play, it was "Home, James!" and no-one spared the horses.