In a darkened smoke-filled room above Kehoe's pub in South Anne Street, Dublin, last night, brown envelopes were changing hands.
Ms Helen Shaw, director of radio at RT╔, got one. "Thanks for letting us do that show," a gravelly Haughey-type voice intoned. Colm Keena, author of Haughey's Millions, and a veteran of the Moriarty Tribunal, got another. "Thanks for giving us the gig tonight," gravel-voice said.
But as far as we know no money changed hands. It was instead the beginning of the Joe Taylor-and-Malcolm Douglas Show to mark the launch of Irish Times journalist Colm Keena's book, published at the end of September by Gill & Macmilla.
Already it has shot to number one on the paperback non-fiction list, knocking Posh Spice off the top and beating the Driving Theory Test as the most popular in its class. About 8,000 copies are in the shops, according to the publicist.
To mark the occasion, the After Dark duo composed a 20-minute sketch, drawing on the in camera depositions Mr Charles Haughey gave to Mr Justice Moriarty, which later were read into evidence in the Moriarty Tribunal.
"I spent the summer going through the depositions. It's the good bits, parts where he was fencing with John Coughlan," Joe Taylor, the voice of Mr Haughey, disclosed. "It's a pity there wasn't an audience there to hear how good a Joey's boy could do it."
"Fellow lifers" as Colm Keena described the scribes who toiled with him at the Castle, included Annette O'Donnell and Emma O'Kelly from RT╔ and Christine Newman from The Irish Times. Not surprisingly, since the tribunal has not finished its business, there were no judges, lawyers or politicians.