OUT at Bartra house in Dalkey this week Helen Stephenson hosted a party that was a happy mixture between a wedding party and a house cooling. Helen is due to move out of the house next week, after, which its new owners Alison Doody and Gavin O'Reilly will move in, so she invited some old friends around for a final farewell to the spectacular house.
She won't be moving too far from her beloved Bartra - the builders have started work on her new house on some of Bartra's grounds and she hopes to move in the spring.
The wedding part of the very lively party was for Helen's architect daughter Simone who married Chinese management consultant Conghua Li. The two married in Canada in August, with the result that many of Simone's old college friends and ex colleagues had never met Conghua. The Bartra wedding, bash has certainly fixed that.
Helen herself is set to marry Dermot Cafferky this year. It's not often that a mother can cheerfully say "my daughters have had their weddings, now it's my turn." The two haven't named the day - at our age," says Helen, "there really is no rush."