THE SOCIAL NETWORK:It was a night of reunions at the launch of Bonhams auctioneers' new Dublin office, on Molesworth Street, on Thursday evening, when guests had a preview of Walter Osborne's Feeding the Chickens, which carries an estimate of €600,000 to €850,000.
Lainey Keogh’s muse, Cha Cha Seigne, travelled up from Turbotstown House, outside Castlepollard in Co Westmeath, and caught up with her friends Honor FitzGerald, who is a daughter of the late Knight of Glin, and Laragh Stuart, who is the great-granddaughter of Maud Gonne. Seigne was accompanied by her husband, the barrister Peter Bland.
Stuart, who is better known for her Laragh Stuart food and catering business, has recently taken up painting. She told me she used to study tribal art in London and is concentrating on abstract works.
Jane Beattie, Bonhams’ new representative in Ireland, threw the party and welcomed all her guests personally. She used to work at James Adam Sons, on St Stephen’s Green, and everyone from that firm turned up to wish her well. Brian Coyle, the chairman of Adam’s, was not deterred by a recent fall and turned up with a walking stick.
Michael Keogh, who used to work at Adam’s with Beattie, travelled up from MJ Keogh Antiques, at Freehalman House in Co Longford. Other auction-house representatives also turned up on the evening: Arabella Bishop of Sotheby’s, John deVere White and Ian Whyte.
Michael Mortell was accompanied by his partner, Oonagh Finn. He’s looking forward to moving his Michael Mortell Antiques Gallery from Dame Court to Francis Street next month.
Cliona Buckley, the founder of Justice for Investors, was deep in conversation with the conservationist and artist Peter Pearson, who told me his exhibition of recent work opens at the James Joyce Cultural Centre on April 14th.
Pearson and his family used to live in the Sick Indigent Roomkeepers Society building on Palace Street, just off Dame Street. He now lives in the Deeps in Co Wexford, which, he said, was once the home of John Redmond.
Mary Bowe, formerly of Marlfield House in Co Wexford, told me she has just bought a new house in Enniscorthy. Her two daughters now run Marlfield.
The artist Gay O’Neill was accompanied by her friend Caroline O’Connor, who flew in from Nice and is preparing for Norma Smurfit’s Spring Clean for Charity sale at the RDS on March 11th.
Who we spottedArt collector David L'Estrange and his wife, Dee O'Reilly; milliner Tahnee Morgan-Grant and her husband, the bookmaker Shane Grant; barrister Lucy McRoberts; art dealer Madeline Doody; architect Colm Doyle; barrister Sarah Osborne; solicitor Elizabeth Burke; Aiden McDonnell of Colliers International
What we drankChampagne
No more cliffhangers for Flood
The general manager of the Cliff Town House is leaving the Dublin restaurant next week. Drew Flood was once almost as associated with Bentley’s, on St Stephen’s Green, as was Richard Corrigan. When Corrigan moved out and the restaurant was renamed the Cliff Town House, the owner, Barry O’Callaghan, kept Flood on as general manager. O’Callaghan also owns the Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, Co Waterford.
Flood has secured a new post with Hospitality Business Improvement Management as its man in Ireland. “I’m still the best of pals with Barry and Adriaan Bartels, the general manager of the Cliff House in Ardmore,” he says.
Flood was in the same year at Clongowes as Bartels, whom he has known since he was 11. O’Callaghan was a few years behind them. Before starting out at Bentley’s, Flood worked at the K Club for Michael Smurfit, who is incoming president of the Clongowes Union.
Flood enjoyed working with Corrigan, “the Max Clifford of the culinary world”. “He was so full-on and had great energy. He cooks me dinner in Corrigan’s Mayfair any time I’m in London.” Other memorable evenings include having Samuel L Jackson and Dionne Warwick in, and rubbing shoulders with Coldplay, who were in as guests of U2. “They stayed until 5am. Sure, I’m friends with Chris Martin on Facebook, but it’s all one-way traffic with the messages.”
Wife appointed deputy to Israeli ambassador
It will be officially announced on Monday that Nurit Tinari-Modai, the wife of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Boaz Modai, has been appointed his deputy. Last summer the role of deputy ambassador here became vacant, and Tinari-Modai applied for the job. A career diplomat in her own right, she told me that she is delighted and that it is an unprecedented decision.
To avoid conflict around the breakfast table, Ambassador Modai will not write the annual professional opinion of his wife’s performance; instead, it will be written by headquarters in Jerusalem.
When her husband was offered the posting to Ireland, Tinari-Modai was offered the role of cultural attache to New York, but she declined it, as she didn’t w ant to split up the family. The couple have two children.
The appointment of two partners to the same representation will save 500,000 shekels (€99,000) for the Israeli government, as there is no need to rent accommodation or incur related family expenses.
A busy debut for Isabel's
There was no sign of five-year-old Isabel Keegan at the official opening of the restaurant that bears her name on Wednesday evening. Isabel’s, on the corner of Baggot Street and Upper Fitzwilliam Street, was packed. Her father, Ian Keegan from Killiney, and her mother, Emma Barry from Dalkey, were busy meeting guests.
Keegan told me that he opened the restaurant just before Christmas but had to close when he developed pneumonia in his left lung. Then he opened it again on “Friday the 13th” of January. His hobby is wine, and he owns booze.ie. Isabel attends Dalkey School Project National School, where Keegan met the new restaurant’s executive chef, Niall O’Sullivan, another parent, who had recently returned from Australia.
Louise Kennedy was wearing one of her winter coats from next year’s collection. She’s flying down to Florence next week to work on designs. Tom McGurk was joined by fellow rugby pundit Brent Pope. Tom’s wife, Caroline Kennedy, who runs Kennedy PR, was catching up with the events organiser Paddy Bollard, with whom she used to share a house. Bollard is a first cousin of the Nationwide presenter Mary Kennedy, who recently visited McGurk and Kennedy’s Dublin pad for an interview with McGurk before the rugby season kicked off properly.
Who we spotted:Amanda Cochrane of Image Interiors; Ken Hutton of 4fm; Sinead Considine of Upstage interiors, who designed the restaurant.
What we drankChampagne
What we ateCanapes
The ambassador, the archbishop, the academic and the architect
The Austrian ambassador, Dr Walter Hagg, told me that he loves Ireland like he loves his wife, and that he loves Italy like one might love a mistress, at the launch of volume XIV of the Irish Georgian Society’s journal, at the Royal Irish Academy of Music on Wednesday.
Ambassador Hagg is no longer the acting dean of the diplomatic corps, since the new nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, became dean upon presentation of his credentials.
“I enjoyed doing the job for five months,” said Hagg. “I particularly liked presenting New Year’s greetings to the President on behalf of the diplomatic corps as the acting dean. It is the first time in the history of the Republic that it was not done by the nuncio.” The ambassador has met the new nuncio and has been impressed. “Charlie Brown is a charming man and a New Yorker; it is impossible not to like him. Plus, he speaks your language.”
Dr Peter Harbison, the honorary academic editor at the Royal Irish Academy on Dawson Street in Dublin, told me he is producing a book on William Burton Conyngham, who is a “collateral” (or indirect) ancestor of the current Marquess Conyngham, better known as Henry Mount Charles, although his son Alex is now the current earl of Mount Charles.
Harbison is just about to start a book on Henry O’Neill, the 19th-century antiquarian and painter, and he is also editing a book to honour 50 years of medieval conferences in Roscrea. The 50th Roscrea conference takes place at Mount St Joseph Abbey from April 13th to 15th. The theme is “from Citeaux to Roscrea”.
Dr Conor Lucey, who lectures in architectural history and historiography at UCD, told me that he’s jointly editing, with Dr Christine Casey of Trinity College, a book on decorative plasterwork in Ireland and Europe, which will be published in April.
James White from Clonakilty, Co Cork, made sure everyone had a drink. He has a master’s in planning and is currently an intern with the Irish Georgian Society.
Who we spottedA very dapper Jerry Healy SC, who was busy checking emails on his BlackBerry; Dr Terence Dooley of NUI Maynooth; Prof Kevin B Nowlan, acting president of the IGS; Mary Bryan, the chair of the IGS
