MIRIAM LORD'S WEEK:It was party central around Leinster House this week when TDs and Senators defied the inclement weather and indulged in a little midsummer madness.
The technical group of deputies, marshalled by Finian McGrath, headed off together for dinner at one of Mick Wallace’s restaurants, Bar Italia (below) in Dublin’s Italian Quarter.
The group enjoyed a bonding session on Tuesday night in Mick’s popular trattoria. There were three no-shows: Maureen O’Sullivan, Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett, who was unavoidably detained at a protest meeting.
“The crack was fantastic,” Finian tells us. “The stories were hilarious – Mattie McGrath, Shane Ross and Claire Daly had us all in stitches. You couldn’t get a word in edgeways. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my guitar: that would have shut them up.”
Apparently, the technical group decided at their parliamentary party a few weeks ago to “give Mick a dig-out”. The property developer employs 52 people in his restaurant business.
The food kept coming and the wine flowed, and committed smokers Finian, Thomas Pringle and Joan Collins waved in through the windows at their disapproving colleagues inside.
All the lefties were at one end of the table and all the capitalists were at the other. Renowned funeralgoer Mattie, who has aligned himself to the business rump of the group, sat with Shane Ross and Stephen Donnelly.
He told them a joke doing the rounds in his South Tipperary constituency.
“Why did they bury Bin Laden at sea?”
“Because Mattie wouldn’t be able to make the funeral.”
Mick pushed the boat out for his colleagues – who, in fairness to them, paid their way. They drank a very good Dolcetto – “an inexpensive rustic wine, but as honest as the day is long”, vineyard owner Wallace tells us. “You could drink a bottle in the middle of the day and it wouldn’t make you drowsy.”
The white wine drinkers sampled another Piedmontese wine, “a sharp and fruity Arneis.”
They started with a mixed plate, which included cured meats imported by Wallace’s company and cheese drizzled with honey from the Piedmont region, before moving on to sea bream, pasta and risotto. Stephen Donnelly had pizza.