The violin player, Maria Mason-Hennessy, is on hand to play a reel. A couple of diving instructors, Declan Watters and Dan McAuley, are on hand to add flair and a certain oceanic depth. Kate Thompson, the novelist herself, poses with her sister writers - Cathy Kelly and Marian Keyes - before she delivers her speech, which she has chosen to write in verse.
"I wish I were more like Cathy Kelly," she says. "Speech-making turns my legs to jelly . . . my heart's going pit-a-pat/As I stand here all decked out in satin and tat."
Kelly, who launches the book, is equally effusive about Thompson: "And she's beautiful and clever and talented and writes wonderful books." Actors from Thompson's acting days in Glenroe are also here in the Library Bar of the Central Hotel for the launch, including Mary McEvoy, Eileen Colgan, Susan Slott and Geraldine Plunkett. Also here is Thompson's husband, Malcolm Douglas, and their daughter, Clara Thompson Douglas (14) who chats to her friend Cassie Dempsey (13). "Malcolm and Clara - you know this is true - I couldn't have done it without both of you," says the author of the new book, which, taking its title from diving, is called Going Down.