As pedants have not tired of pointing out, this year's winter solstice occurred yesterday morning and not, despite the presence of RTE and assorted dignitaries at Newgrange, on Tuesday.
Last night, when an alternative celebration of the solstice was held in Dublin, the national television station was notable by its absence. So too were the Taoiseach and other representatives of the Government, but the enthusiastic audience which turned up seemed none too upset at the shortage of celebrities. To mark the occasion, an open-air projection called Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space by artist Paul O'Connor was shown in Temple Bar's Meeting House Square from 6.30 p.m. Snapshots of the sun collected from a satellite via the Internet over the past six days were screened onto an eastern wall of the square; above this image hovered a very real and very full moon.
Whether either the sun or the moon held great interest for many of those invited to attend was a moot point. The alternative attractions of mulled wine and mince pies exerted their own persistent authority. as did the power of sociable conversation.
Therefore, the soundtrack provided by Denis Roche, ranging in its sources from India to Erik Satie, was barely heard. More attention was paid, however, to last night's guest speaker, writer and thinker John Moriarty.
Although requesting that he be introduced as a bogman, Mr Moriarty is probably better known as the presenter of a former television series called The Blackbird and the Bell.
Despite the intense cold and the absence of notes, he had no trouble in talking for some 20 minutes on a range of topics as diverse as the 18th-century philosopher Thomas Paine, Tutankamun's tomb and Navajo Indians. On Of RTE's presentation on Tuesday, like many viewers Mr Moriarty said he had "difficulty" with what had been shown, observing, "people walked into Newgrange the way they'd walk into a bank or a post office or the Dail. Newgrange is a wonderful mystery enacting itself but I'm not sure we know how to inherit it".
Mr Moriarty proposed that the most recent referendum should not have stopped with a revision of the Constitution but a rewriting of the entire document so that "everything on the island of Ireland should be included in the Constitution - the trees, the birds, everything."