Saturday Night Live(ly)
Narrowly defeated in yesterday's rugby match (Irl 19 - Fra 26), the natives were out in force last night to drown their collective sorrows. The French were celebrating no doubt, but it seemed they decided to keep a low profile. My good friend Judith Giltinane and I hit the town last night in search of .... well, a good time I guess.
We kicked off proceedings in Cocoon, the bar owned by former F1 driver Eddie Irvine (although I hear that his former business partner John Foley is still pursuing him in the courts over ownership). I bumped in Michael Hayes, one of the presenters of new TV show How Low Can You Go? on RTE 2. I congratulated him on a job well done but he didn't take my praise too well, telling me that he wasn't too happy about the way in which the show was edited. I reminded him that we'd only seen the first of six and left him with the hope that things improve.
En route to Rush, we called into the newly revamped AKA off Grafton Street. The place is looking uber stylish, resembling a trendy Manhatten bar. We probably should have stayed in AKA, so busy was the crowd in Rush, the South William Street bar owned by Johnny Rush. Every nights a party night in Johnny's, where he can usually be found in the DJ booth spinning the discs.
We happened upon Bryan McDonald, the former Evening Herald journalist, who is now living in London and moving on to Geneva. He proudly informed us that he recently married his girlfriend, stunning model Gurana, in Vienna. I was more surprised than Lindsey Lohan at a pioneer disco. He's a dark horse.
On then to Lillies Bordello where I spotted the lovely Ciara Carroll, FMI Vivienne Doyle and Paul and Ian Davey, who own the wonderful Toni&Guy salon on Dame Street.
The real party, however, was over at Renards. En route we passed a forlorn Shane Byrne, who had obviously had enough of the sorrow drowning. Inside I spotted many of the Irish team, including Brian O'Driscoll, who was the recipient of a rather loving embrace from ex-girlfriend, top model Glenda Gilson. Also patying the night away were publisher PJ Gibbons, Today FM presenter Tony Fenton, rugby pundit Brent Pope, Formula 1 boss Eddie Jordan and artist Guggi.
