'So many stairs," they spluttered, as they made their way to the top floor of The Winding Stair Book Shop.
Smokers and their (long-suffering) friends (ahem) arrived in large numbers to congratulate Conor Goodman on the publication of his book, The Smokers' Handbook. It's billed as a "survival guide for a dying breed".
Michael McCormack, (who is trying to give them up), was there. He is lead singer with The Mitcheners, and says their first album, New Wapping Street, is being released in January, while their latest CD, Cars, was launched in Dublin last night.
From Clogheen in Co Tipperary, Anthony O'Keeffe, in a fetching blue pin-stripe suit with red tie and cravat, met up with his sister, Annabel O'Keeffe. They chatted to Brigid de Courcy, the newly-appointed script-editor of Fair City, and another soap writer, Kevin McGee. What about the baddie the viewing public loved to hate: Billy (who was played by Stuart Dunne)? No, his murder will not turn out to be a bad dream in a shower, they say. But 840,000 people watched the soap the night he was killed, they boast.
The Goodman family came, too, to salute Conor, the youngest in the family: his parents Brenda and Ted Goodman, a retired inspector of taxes, were there, watching out for Nessa, Fergal and Aoife, the older siblings.
Hugh Linehan, editor of The Ticket, rose to speak about Goodman, who is production editor of The Irish Times entertainment supplement.
"I'm a chewer (Nicorette) not a smoker," he said. He listed all the qualities smokers are said to possess: they're more fun, sexier, more artistic, more creative, more intelligent, more successful. But, he said, "apparently it does cause impotency and gangrene, which is a particularly unattractive combination." Many sucked in their breaths.
Goodman's wife Niamh Farren, also present, then watched him take the floor to respond. As to smoking, Goodman insisted: "I quit - every half hour or so."