The irony of it - a room filled with 500 designers and the awards kept falling apart. On Monday night the Red Box nightclub was filled with Ireland's arbiters of style, all gathered to hear the winners of the 1998 Glen Dimplex Design Awards. Unfortunately, Martin Naughton, the chairman of Glen Dimplex, had to present the trophies - bright purple lava lamps - with muttered instructions on how to hold the darn thing so the legs wouldn't fall off. The President, Mrs McAleese, made the final speech of the evening and was very much in casual mode, joking that she had jumped at the chance to hand out the awards as she'd been dying to check out John Reynolds's clubs for years. After a lot of soul-searching, she had decided that the only real design moment in her family was when her grandmother had knitted matching Fair Isle jumpers, socks and gasmask covers for all her children.
The overall award went to Gillian Murphy for her package design for the brand new Irish tipple, Boru vodka. The owners of Boru, Pat Rigney and David Phelan, who left Bailey's to set up their own hooch label, came along to cheer Gillian on and congratulate her on scooping the top award. Designer Peter Sheehan must have had a sense of deja vu about the whole affair as it is the second time he has snaffled the product design award for a computer mouse. Peter came up with the winning rodent for the Californian company Logitech.
Welcoming people at the door were Design Week committee member Cuan Hanley and chairman Andrew Bradley. Cuan is just back from the Celtic Festival Japan in Tokyo, where he showed his snazzy men's suiting alongside clothes by Mary Gregory, Lynn Mar and Orla Kiely (See Weekend 12). Luckily, he was back in time for Design Week as London designer Paul Smith flew into town to deliver the keynote lecture at Vicar Street.
Cuan, who used to work with Paul, had helped to lure him to our shores and joined him for a celebratory drink at the Odeon after his talk on Thursday.
A gift horse
Despite the storm warnings, the last day of the flat season on Sunday finished with an unseasonal blast of sunshine when racing enthusiasts and big hat addicts alike went out to Leopardstown racecourse for the O'Callaghan Hotels November raceday. One Dublin solicitor, Michael Kelly, had a particularly sunny day as his racecard was plucked out in a draw to win half a racehorse for a year. Not, of course, that Michael is now the proud owner of two legs and a tail, rather that half of the horse's winnings for the year will go straight to him. It's nothing to be sneezed at either, as the horse in question, Alexander Banquet, won the Weatherby's Champion Bumper at Cheltenham back in March and more recently, its first race over hurdles at Fairyhouse. So there was great excitement as Michael, his wife Cathy Kelly, and his children Suzanne and Michael met their horse for the first time in the parade ring.
The other unusual winner on the day was Breda Hamill, who gambled on having the best accessories and won a £500 voucher from Brown Thomas and a trip to Gibraltar for her troubles. Other guests enjoying the autumn sunlight included Sean Barrett TD; former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave; solicitors Gerald and Clodagh Kean; John McCloskey, chief executive of ACC Bank; Noel O'Callaghan, managing director of O'Callaghan's Hotels and his wife Miriam O'Callaghan, who judged the accessories competition; and Paul Carty, managing director of Deloitte & Touche.
Not-so-Mean Fiddler
Jadzia Kaminska, the busy director of Cradle, had just returned from a year-long stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina when she was thrown straight into organising the annual Cradle Rocks Again gig. The Mean Fiddler is the venue, and the owner of both the Dublin and London branches of the Stingy Violinist (geddit?), Vince Power, is coming over especially for the gig. Vince has long been a supporter of the charity, even hopping onto one of the first buses that travelled from Ireland to Bosnia bringing food, toys and a bit of carnival atmosphere to the kids in the area.
This year's fundraiser on Thursday features Picturehouse, who have recently had a sell-out show in the Olympia as well as a fair amount of chart success. They're joined by Prayerboat, the Fleadh Cowboys and Ger Whelan of an Emotional Fish. The funds raised from the show will allow Cradle to send a 40-foot container filled with family food and hygiene packages out to Mostar in Bosnia in time for Christmas. Tickets are available from the Mean Fiddler box office, HMV and usual outlets.
Kilkenny expands
November has been good for the Kilkenny Shop for two rather different reasons. It announced that it would be opening a 4,500 square foot outlet in the Bailey's centre at the Leopardstown racecourse. This whizzy new multimedia entertainment and conference centre is due to open during spring 1999 and is already being successfully marketed world-wide. The other first for Kilkenny was a rather successful fashion show held in the Great Hall of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in aid of Children at Risk in Ireland (CARI).
While there has traditionally been an annual fashion show in Cork, the shop's director Bernadette Kelleher- Nolan felt it meant her Dublin customers were missing out. So she decided to do a Dublin show and plumped for a fairly new charity, CARI, as the beneficiary. "We wanted to find somebody who was not getting Government funding and they're not getting any at all. We felt it was worthwhile," she grinned. A number of the shop's designers - Aideen Bodkin, Andrea Clery and Helen McAllinden from the label Ramsay; Richard Nolan from John Rocha, who has just started supplying his clothing line to the store; Una O'Reilly from Allicano and Pat McCarthy - turned up to see their clothes on the ramp and show their support. However, possibly the person enjoying the evening most was Sarah Nolan, Bernadette's young daughter who was attending her first fashion show and had been looking forward to it "for ages".
Crime pays
The cops turned up in force, but the robbers stayed away from Wednesday's launch of Paul Williams's new expose of the Irish crime world, Gangland. The best-selling author of The General and Sunday World journalist appeared delighted at the news that Gangland has gone straight into the bestseller list at No 1.
At the party in The Bridge it was almost impossible to move for the sheer number of fans and friends. Mingling in the crowd were many gardai, including the Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne and Assistant Commissioner Tony Hickey, as well as TDs Tony Gregory, Gerry Reynolds and Jim Mitchell. Supporting one of their own were Sunday World editor Colm McGinty and managing director Michael Brophy. Other journos in the crush included deputy editor of the Sunday Independent Willie Kealy, Matt Cooper, editor of the Sunday Tribune, and from RTE Paul Reynolds, Joe Duffy and Marty Morrissey.
Gerry Ryan, MC for the evening, said he was proud to be associated with the writer and commented that if crime doesn't pay, publishing crime obviously does - which was clearly illustrated by the happy face of publisher Michael O'Brien.
Kieran Corrigan of Merlin Films, which put together the finance for the film of The General, officially launched the new best-seller. He is busy with new projects Miss Julie, Noel Coward's Hayfever and, to be directed by Nicholas Roeg, Ivanhoe.
Watercolour Dublin
Just in time for Christmas shopping lists, a beautiful book of watercolours by architect Cathal O'Neill has hit the bookshops. Wellknown as head of the school of architecture at UCD until 1996, O'Neill has spent the last two years painting old and new architectural landmarks of the capital with accompanying text of his personal odyssey around both famous and lesser-known buildings. Cathal O'Neill's Dublin was officially launched by one of his former students, Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn. Friends, family and architectural colleagues struggled valiantly through traffic gridlock to congratulate the author at the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland on Wednesday evening. Daughter Emma, an architect with Studio Sofield, taking a brief break from redesigning Gucci stores worldwide, flew in from New York with her architect husband, Ben. Prominent architects such as John Meagher mingled with guests Sarah and Sha'sha Seigne, Patricia Jorgensen, Liz McManus TD and Kevin Kieran of the Arts Council. A party atmosphere was provided by lively children and babies, including Cathal's grandchildren and Rachel Fehily's new baby.
Raise a glass
Bill Kelly of Kelly's Resort Hotel in Rosslare had the inspired idea of holding a wine-tasting dinner and wine auction to support the Wexford branch of the Down's Syndrome Association. The association is developing a one-on-one home visiting service for children aged between two and six and needs to raise £28,000 to fund the service for the school year 1998/99.
The bad news is that the dinner is already a sell-out. The good news? Wine buffs still have the chance to bid for wines in the wine auction. Among them is a case of 1988 Petrus, a bottle of Ramonet's 1996 Montrachet; a bottle of 1982 Chateau Montrose; three large bottles of Gosset Champagne; a case of 1990 Lynch-Bages; six bottles of 1990 Chateau Palmer and a magnum of Armand Rousseau's 1982 Chambertin. For a catalogue and bidding form, fax Bill Kelly at 05332222, or phone 053-32114.