Lurid cocktails, variegated nail varnish, and colourful Ronan Keating

In years to come, when you're planning your ultra-chic, retro 1998 party, there are three elements you must be sure to remember - Sea Breeze cocktails, multi-coloured nail varnish and Ronan Keating. Those three things will capture the '98 zeitgeist perfectly and will be sure to have your guests shrieking about your ingenuity and elephant-like memory.

It was a good year for cocktails in general but the latest blow-in to the world of mixed drinks, the Sea Breeze swept all before it. A lurid pink mixture of cranberry juice, grapefruit and vodka, it cropped up just about everywhere but perhaps reached its zenith at the launch of a new Irish vodka, Boru. Some 1,000 of the country's finest gathered in the Red Box and downed - wait for it - over 6,000 shots of vodka, most of it in Breezes.

The nail varnish thing was a trend that was initially confined to the aristo-boho set and teenagers, but during 1998 was spotted on the toes and fingers of even the most respectable of fashion gurus. It was a look but hopefully we've all learnt our lessons for 1999 - nails should be purple because you've shut your fingers in the car door not because of a fashion moment.

Ronan Keating should be given an award for keeping the social set entertained - not with his music but with his antics.

First of all there was the 21st birthday party (in the Red Box again) in March, celebrated with his VBFs (Very Best Friends) the Newcastle United football team (John Barnes's kids love Ronan, apparently), snooker star Ken Doherty, and Dickie Rock. Ronan drove through the doors on his Harley Davidson, dressed as a Teddy boy with model Yvonne Connolly holding on tight. Just how tight only became evident when the pair of them snuck off to the Caribbean and got married in secret during the summer.

Still Ro and Yo weren't so mean as to deprive their friends and family of a good knees-up and in July they threw a big bash out in Powerscourt in Enniskerry. Unfortunately, the day they plumped for, July 3rd, was the one chosen by the 1998 It-couple, Sonia Reynolds and Barry Lyons for their ultra-stylish wedding in Kildare. Undeterred, one of the guests, publisher Mike Hogan hired a helicopter and ferried a party between the two events.

Other notable weddings included Amy Hubbard and Drew MacLean's in Dingle (very chic), Fiachna O Braonain and Suki Stuart's in Wicklow (very rock and roll) and Rachel O'Neill and Isaac Allen's in Ballymaloe (very good food). Meanwhile, Lorraine Keane broke the collective male heart in August - not by announcing she was leaving AA Roadwatch for TV3 but by announcing her engagement to Wayne Byrne.

"Wayne 'n' Lorraine, how ridiculous," one half of the nation sniffed.

THE theatre opening to be at was undoubtedly the first night of A Streetcar Named Desire starring Frances McDormand in the Gate in May. Superior by far, however, was scooping an invitation for a private soiree out in Dalkey in the house rented by Frances and her director husband, Joel Coen. The book party of the year was not here but in London when Pat McCabe failed to win a Booker Prize and partied twice as hard in Filthy McNasty's pub in Islington to make up for it.

Favourite topics of conversation on the social circuit included property ("Haven't you heard, Rialto is the new Ballsbridge?"), the traffic ("Of course, my Spacecruiser qualifies for the bus lanes") and for a few blissful weeks, designer Paul Costelloe's shocking suggestion that Irish women weren't stylish. His comments, which came after an Image article featuring Ireland's stylish women meant that this magazine's party in the Merrion Hotel had the slight edge over the 100th birthday celebration held by IT magazine a few weeks later. Both had a similarly large amount of people wearing odd-coloured nail varnish.

All the annual events remained good for a party or two, the exception being the sad loss of the usual round of Eurovision bunfights. Race meets continued to be popular among the horsey set, with the Leopardstown post-Christmas festival remaining the closely-run favourite. Ford Cork Week rejoiced in good weather and the highly popular addition of a bar run by champagne newcomers, the Bubble Brothers.

Two one-offs also proved remarkably good for parties - the Tour de France in July and the Tall Ships race in August. The best party of the Tall Ships event was without question on board the Mexican ship when all the lifeboats were turned into impromptu bars and green Margheritas were served until the wee small hours. Another one-off, the party in O'Lunney's bar in New York after Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane won four Tony awards, proved our reputation as the drinking Irish for once and for all.

The best of the rest were without question Marc O'Neill's fashion show and the launch of John Rocha's new glass and lighting range for Waterford Crystal. Both had those two vital factors - location (the IFSC car-park for the former and Nabil Saidi's stunning North Great George's Street place for the latter) and groovy guests (jeunesse doree at O'Neill's, and assorted rock stars at the latter) - and not a Sea Breeze in sight at either.