On the Town: Men and women, dressed in dark or pinstriped suits, packed into the Royal College of Surgeons to hear some freshly-minted poems.
The stars of the Law Library - many involved in the Moriarty Tribunal at Dublin Castle - came to relax after a hard day at the Bar. Judges, barristers and other colleagues of poet and barrister, John O'Donnell SC, came to hear him read from his new book, Icarus Sees His Father Fly.
Some of the legal brethren were reluctant to have their names recorded in this social section of the newspaper - feeling like ducks out of water, perhaps. However, among the shy group who attended from the Law Library were Donal O'Donnell SC, High Court judge Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan, Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, Garrett Cooney SC, Mr Justice Esmond Smyth, president of the Circuit Court, Richard Nesbitt SC, John Coughlan SC and Bill Shipsey SC.
O'Donnell himself, who has "a walk-on part" in the Moriarty Tribunal, said he writes his poems early in the morning before he dons his courtroom clothes. Poet Dennis O'Driscoll said O'Donnell was, to use a legal term, "taking silk" as a poet with the publication by Dedalus of his second collection of poems. His first collection, Some Other Country, was published by Bradshaw Books.