This week saw the end of the law term, so school was out for all the city's legal eagles. There's no-one to beat the legal profession when it comes to partying, so needless to say there was a lot of celebrating in the O'Reilly Hall on Wednesday at the annual gala dinner in aid of Co-Operation North.
Frank Clarke was just one of the senior counsels present, but was surely the only one to have pulled off the hat-trick of court in the morning, Galway Races in the afternoon and presiding at the top table in the evening.
Frank, who was chair of the management committee, was joined for dinner by the attorney general, David Byrne and his wife, Geraldine Byrne, as well as Carmel Naughton, chair of Co-Operation North and her husband Martin Naughton, the general director of Glen Dimplex, and judges John Quirke and Diarmuid O'Donovan.
If this was the top table, their neighbouring table must surely have been a pretty close match. Solicitor Joseph Deane and his wife Fran Deane, had gathered together a lively gang that included David Andrews, Minister for Defence and his wife, Annette Andrews; senior counsel Paul Gilligan and his wife, Mary Gilligan and Gerald Healy, chief executive of Guardian PMPA and his wife Celine Healy. Celine bid £4,000 for a rather magnificent case of Cos d'Estournal 1961 that Gilbey's had donated for auction - the most ever paid for a crate of wine in this country.
It was an occasion for double celebration for the Deanes as Fran and Joe's son, Simon Deane, an apprentice solicitor now working in his father's firm, and his longterm girlfriend, nurse Muireann O'Tierney, had just recently announced their engagement. The couple, who were joined on their table by barrister Murray Johnson and Arthur Andrews manager Alan Ennis, were busy checking out the band to see if they were fit for their own wedding, in May. Other folk wining, dining and cutting the rug were Nora Owen TD; the PDs' Michael McDowell SC; tailor Louis Copeland (who donated not one but two outfits to the raffle); Denis McCullough, lead counsel in the Haughey tribunal; John McMenamin, newly appointed chair of the Bar Council; former rugby international Donal Spring, and senator Donie Cassidy.