When Irish Times journalist Seamus Martin held a party in Doyle's Bar on Tuesday to mark the publication of his novel, Duggan's Destiny, a huge crowd of friends and colleagues turned out to wish him well. Prof Declan Kiberd presided, and gave Seamus's novel glowing praise, as well as delivering an impromptu and very witty history lesson. In a rather post-modern note regarding politicians he pointed out that we all remembered exactly where we were when director Oliver Stone announced he would be shooting JFK.
Duggan's Destiny is about Duggan, a man who gained his place in history as Daniel O'Connell's manservant and to mark the event, Gerry Lyne, a direct descendant of O'Connell, was there as well as Phillip McDermot of Poolbeg Press. eamus, and thinking he had found Duggan's diary. When they discovered that the story was not a found manuscript but predominantly Martin's creation, he declared they were even more delighted and impressed. Seamus was accompanied by his wife, Anita Martin, and his two daughters Deirdre Ni Mhairtin of Cursai Ealaine and designer Ruth Martin, who created the handsome cover design for the book. Helen Shaw, head of RTE radio, was there, describing the huge task of setting up the new arts channel as "akin to giving birth - an awful analogy but true". Other notables included director Garry Hynes, who turned up later on in the evening and the Russian ambassador, Yevgeny Mikhailov, invited by Seamus who was for many years the Irish Times Moscow correspondent.