There are chaffeur-driven limousines, boxes of Maltesers and glass upon glass of Sea Breeze. It has to be the Irish premiere at the Savoy Cinema, O'Connell Street of When Brendan Met Trudy. Celebrities in attendance include the film's writer and coproducer, Roddy Doyle; the director, Kieron J. Walsh, the two young leads, Flora Montgomery and Peter McDonald, and the Scottish producer, Lynda Myles.
Afterwards, the guests party late at the Morrison Hotel, with many other young men of film - including Paddy Breathnach and Buncrana-man Enda McCallion in attendance - all talking film. Also present is Chinedu Onyejelem, editor of the Dublin-based monthly newspaper, Metro Eireann, which features a serial by Roddy Doyle called The Deportees - a sequel to The Commitments - the first chapter of which appears on Weekend 6.
Flora Montgomery, who opens at the Gate shortly in the Neil LaBute play, Bash, is with her older siblings, Rose, Fouzle and Hugo, and her boyfriend, John Brunner, a lighting designer. The director's parents, Donald and Rose Walsh, are here also, along with his sister, Donna Walsh, and her husband, Declan Moran, and Walsh's brother, Nathan Walsh, who describes himself as "a born star" and is based in Clonmel.
Dr Garret FitzGerald, who is punctual to a fault, arrives at 6 p.m. Others at the launch in the Dublin Writers' Museum include Maeve Binchy, Tim Pat Coogan, Elizabeth Peavoy, Anne Haverty, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and film-maker Tom Hayes. Ryan's wife and Literary Editor of The Irish Times, Caroline Walsh, is here also with their two children, Alice Ryan (14) and Matt Ryan (17). The father of the author, P.P. Ryan, a solicitor from Rathdowney in Co Laois, attends also.