ON Thursday night in Newman House in Dublin, it seemed that the entire Law Library had crossed the Liffey for the party to mark the publication of Frank Callanan's hiography of T.M. Healy. It was an overwhelmingly male gathering including Justices Hugh O'Flaherty, Tom O'Higgins and Paul Carney, District Court Judge Michael O'Leary as well as Paddy McEntee, Jim O'Driscoll, whose wife Marion was one of the few women in the company. Another notable exception in the male-dominated gathering was Patricia King, who was visiting from her base at Glucksman House in NYU.
Unusually for such a literary and academic gathering, there were two full TV crews downstairs in the grand lobby - one from BBC, the other from ITV. They weren't there to interview the ever-dapper Callanan or capture the jolly legal atmosphere - they were waiting patiently to try to interview John Bruton as he arrived to launch the book.