It was a bad week for taxis but I needn't have worried about arriving late to the party celebrating Dorothy Walker's book, Modern Art In Ireland, as Michael D. Higgins, the guest speaker, was even later than myself. After his charming speech more than one guest was heard to mutter, "A lot better than those five we've been listening to lately."
Dorothy declared herself delighted with the finished product, joking "I'd never worked with a publisher who said `I think that should be colour not black and white'. It's quite unheard of!" She can only have been delighted at the gathering of old friends at her party too.
Seamus Heaney, who wrote the foreword to the book was there with his wife Marie and daughter Catherine, and fellow poet John Montague was there with his partner, Elizabeth Wassell. Elizabeth, who had been speaking at the Oscar Wilde autumn school earlier that day, chatted about her new novel which is set in New York in the world of artists and art frauds.
Of course there were masses of artists there too. Louis le Brocquy came along with his wife Anne Madden, whose exhibition opens in the Hugh Lane Gallery next month. Stephen McKenna was also with his other half, Chung Eun Mo, who has recently had an exhibition in the Kerlin, and Finola Jones was there with David Godbold. Other artists who featured in the book as well as at the party were painters Patrick Scott, Fergus Martin and Fionnuala Ni Chiosain.
Gallery folk turned up in droves as well - Jerome O Drisceoil from the Green on Red, John Kennedy and David Fitzgerald from the Kerlin, Josephine Kelleher of the Rubicon and Suzanne Macdougald of the Solomon. Tanya Kiang will shortly be joining their number; after her successful editorship of Circa magazine, she will become director of the Gallery of Photography in the new year.
One of the guests, Walter Corcoran, is in Ireland from New York for a meeting of the Ireland US Council. He joined Tom Mulcahy, chair of AIB for lunch at the Burlington on Friday but would not be drawn on whether Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is staying with the American ambassador, Jean Kennedy Smith, would come along too.
Meanwhile, Mannix Flynn was receiving nearly as many compliments as Ms Walker, as this was the first time many people had seen him since the success of his one-man show, Talking To The Wall. Mannix said he was spending much of his time responding to the sackloads of mail he received during and after the show, but is also working on new writing and bringing the show to London and New York.