Samuel Beckett might have felt uncomfortable at the Irish Ambassador's breakfast yesterday. The gilded 18th century mouldings in the residence were not in tune with the great writer's "stripped-back minimalism," Ambassador Anne Anderson noted.
But Beckett "remained Irish in his blood and bones", she added. It was unlikely he would have been up in time for the 8.30am meal, but he would have appreciated the rashers.
"He always told friends travelling from Ireland, 'Bring me back some rashers'," Anderson said.
Though he lived in France for the last 52 years of his life, Beckett kept his Irish passport current, and on one trip to the embassy emptied his pockets to help a down-and-out visitor who was looking for consular assistance.
Ambassador Anderson invited French and Irish writers, artists and musicians who've been influenced by Beckett. Among the guests were the French academician Jean-Francois Deniau, senator Jacqueline Gourault, who heads the France-Ireland friendship committee in the senate, and Isabelle Maeght, whose family owns a famous art gallery, and who knew Beckett as a child.
The Irish poet Cathal McCabe and the French actor Alain Paris read from Beckett's work. McCabe's text described May Beckett's long labour, 100 years ago yesterday, concluding: "It was over at last."
Some of the breakfast guests went on to Montparnasse cemetery, where two dozen people held an improvised and atmospheric ceremony over Beckett's grave at noon.
Peter Mulligan, the head of the Northampton Connolly Association and the instigator of the cemetery event, sprinkled earth from the Wicklow mountains, where Beckett walked with his father Bill as a child, on the grey granite tombstone. Mulligan and Alain Paris read from his works. Ambassador Anderson and the poet Derry O'Sullivan - who knew Beckett - spoke about him.
Centenary events were to conclude last night with the Booker Prize winner John Banville discussing Beckett's influence on him at the Centre Culturel Irlandais.