Artists, plus a fine selection of babies, turned out to celebrate the opening of the new gallery space at IMMA this week.
Maeve Kneafsey and Michael McKenna, both in publishing, are here with their four-week-old daughter, Hannah McKenna, who lies in state in her pram, calmly watching the world go by. Not so calm is baby Louis Joynt de Fouw, a three-month-old who has had enough of art for one evening and obviously wants . . . something. His mother, sculptor Rachel Joynt, is about to take him home.
In between the prams are the artists, such as the man who paints cows, Belfast man Dermot Seymour. He's still breathless after just getting in from New York. He was there sourcing rats (!) - his latest artistic obsession. "I love rats and their feminine hygiene," he says enigmatically.
Paddy Gilsenan, a sculptor when he isn't working at RTE as a production facilities manager, believes his bronze bust of Gay Byrne outside the Radio Centre is possibly one of his best-loved pieces. Ciaran Benson, professor of psychology at UCD, is happy to be back at IMMA "where you can look at the art in the optimum conditions".
Artists Sean Mulcahy and Maria Simonds-Gooding (whose work is showing at Temple Bar's Graphic Studio Gallery) chat about "conceptual, gestural art".
Quentin Fottrell, a financial analyst and writer, chats about his hand-made leather shoes to his flatmate Sarah Binchy, niece of the famous Maeve and daughter of Prof William Binchy. She's wearing lime green runners.
Later, a number of guests (120, to be precise) dine in the vaulted cellars downstairs and tuck into a fine meal prepared by head chef Damien Costello. The inaugural exhibitions at the new gallery space are Picasso: Working on Paper and The Barry Joule Archive: Works on Paper attributed to Francis Bacon.