French en fete

Dublin's new Lord Mayor, FG Senator Joe Doyle, turned up the day after his surprise election in his gold chain of office for …

Dublin's new Lord Mayor, FG Senator Joe Doyle, turned up the day after his surprise election in his gold chain of office for the Bastille Day celebrations at the French embassy on Ailesbury Road. As usual, the party was in the garden with Army tents, draped in the French colours, providing shelter from the occasional downpour.

The ambassador, Henri de Coignac, played host to a collection of the great and the good in Irish society. Among them, former Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and his daughter Mary, numerous senior Army officers and civil servants, the French community and many diplomats. Now that the Dail is in recess there were few politicians, but Alan Dukes was spotted. There was also a large contingent from six French naval ships which, it was said, had arranged their voyages to hit Dublin for the Tour de France. Congratulations to the French on their World Cup win were greeted with delight, but also the remark that it was all the better for being so unexpected. There was none of the wild exuberance witnessed on the Champs Elysees over three days - no cheering, government proclamations or indeed any singing or dancing. It was a sophisticated French lunchtime garden party.

Receiving as many congratulations as the French was the new Lord Mayor. A veteran Fine Gael politician, he has been in and out of the Dail and Seanad since 1982 and on the city council since 1979. His most unusual claim to fame is that he was best man at the 1955 wedding of Brendan and Beatrice Behan in Donnybrook Church. Behan's choice for the job was deemed unsuitable by the church authorities on religious grounds; he was a Protestant, and pleas were made to the sacristan, one Joe Doyle, to stand in. Two men as unalike as Doyle and the late Behan would be hard to find.