Two first-time novelists took a break from writing to meet their friends at the Sugar Club nightclub on Dublin's Leeson Street this week.
Declan Burke from Sligo town has just written "an Irish version of Humphrey Bogart playing a private eye", he says. Eight Ball Boogie is published by Sitric Books.
Catherine Donnelly said she had "daydreamed about writing a book long before she started" to write The State of Grace. She thanked her partner, advertising writer Frank Sheerin, for his support and encouragement.
The book by Burke, which was introduced by John Ryan, publisher of VIP, GI and the failed Stars on Sunday as documented in the recent RTÉ programme, "doesn't have nearly enough celebrity photos, tragically", said Ryan self-deprecatingly. Burke "was the first person from the country I'd ever met", added the urbane Dubliner.
Burke's literary agent, Jonathan Williams, was at the launch with Cork-born poet Greg Delante, who now lives in Vermont in the US. Burke's uncle from Waterford, James Burke, who is a former Waterford Crystal employee, also came up specially to attend.
Cathy Gilfillen, of Sitric Books, who as master of ceremonies, introduced some of the speakers who came to celebrate the launch, including writer and comedian Pauline McLynn. Her own book, Right on Time, is due out in paperback this month, she said. Next, she's off to Kilkenny for the Murphy Cat Laughs Festival, where she will chair a "Books Soup" day, with six international writers including Tony Hawks of the UK, Helgrimmar Helgason from Iceland and comic Rich Hall from the US.
Writer and broadcaster Shay Healy, whose documentary on Dermot Morgan was screened on RTÉ this week, chatted to Gilfillen's husband, Paul McGuinness, afterwards. Eamonn Delaney was there too to support his fellow writers. And the Sugar Club's manager, Oisín Davis, made sure the cocktails were just right.