Who else spotted Tyne Daly - aka the dark-haired Mary Beth Lacey character from the TV detective series, Cagney and Lacey - in Dublin this week? There she was at the Ireland Funds' award ceremony in UCD's O'Reilly Hall.
Up on stage, the real star of the show, Edna O'Brien, was awarded the Ireland Funds' Literary Award. She wowed the philanthropists from around the world with her words (see Weekend 10) and thanked the Ireland Funds for being so "thoughtful". Loretta Brennan Glucksman, president of the American Ireland Funds, in a white Chanel suit and a necklace of sapphires and diamonds (although emeralds are her favourite stones), praised O'Brien's gift with words.
Fergus Flood, chairman of the Flood Tribunal, was spotted chatting to his long-time friends, Mairead and Nicholas Furlong, from Wexford. They've known each other for 35 years. "We kept horses for him in his days of abject poverty," said Nicholas . "It was a pony," was the judge's riposte.
A New Yorker who has moved here to live is Maureen Cotter, director of development at Sutton Park School. She's getting married to Robert Barry at the end of August in Dingle, Co Kerry.
As for Tyne Daly, after all the elbow-nudging and head-nodding in her direction, it seems she was in Dublin to research the title role of Mother Courage by Berthold Brecht, which she hopes to perform in Dublin next year. She was in the company of her agent, Michael Hartig from New York, and Ken McCue, of the Dublin Inner City Partnership, who said he was taking her around to meet the some of the real mothers of courage in the city.