No-one says a bad word about Kilkenny. All the Dubliners are lining up to head south. The guests at this year's party to mark the count-down to the Murphy's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival can't wait. For the sixth year in a row, they will board buses and trains and travel to Kilkenny, fearless in their quest for fun and entertainment. There's no evidence of the great urban-rural divide. No-one mentions the term culchieland.
Won't they feel threatened in the town, so far from home? "Ahem, Kilkenny is a city," says John Henderson, who will be performing at the festival. "And how shallow do you think Dublin people are?" he cautions. Eddie Bannon, another serious-minded comedian, says Kilkenny is "the most relaxing place". They are very funny, these comedians. Anne Gildea, one of the Nualas who is just back from touring the UK, is also looking forward to the festival over the June Bank Holiday. But it's in the middle of the countryside. It's Kilkenny! Must be something in the stout.
No, no-one will say a bad word about the Marble City. Even the Galwegians are impressed. They are out in force at the reception. "There's an empathy there," says Paraic Breathnach, one of the founders of the great Macnas machine and director of a new theatre group, Fir Clis, which can mean Tricky/Clever/Impotent Men, depending on how you're feeling. "We always side with the underdog in Galway," he explains. "Except in hurling . . . we'd have a natural affinity with what Richard (Cook) is doing."
It was "whimsical karma" and the city's "acceptance of Anglo-Normans" which brought Richard Cook, the man behind the festival, back to the place. And "one-third of Kilkenny's population are blow-ins," he says.
Phil Jupitus, an Essex boy and star of the BBC2 hit series Never Mind the Buzzcocks, is looking forward to his stint on stage at the festival. With his Lithuanian name, we wonder if he was born there? "Yes, I am the Elias Gonzales of Lithuania," he jokes, before revealing that the link is generations old.
And as for the love quotient: comedienne Deirdre O'Kane and her fiance, director Stephen Bradley, are counting the days to their wedding in October. Kinnity Castle near Birr, Co Offaly, has been booked and the dress is being made - by Jen Kelly on Molesworth Street, of Riverdance fame, she adds.