It's hard to know whether the sea-breeze cocktails or the James Joyce images by cartoonist Tom Mathews tempted them in. The crowd at his exhibition in Tosca restaurant included actors, writers, artists, rock singers, academics and museum folk. Guitarist Gerard Griffin and singer Leah Griffin were there with their friend, Stephen Dunne, who popped in to compare Mathews's work with his own paintings, currently on show in The Front Lounge in Parliament Street.
Broadcaster Sean Mac Reamoinn admitted to being both a Joycean and Mathews enthusiast. "Is duine anghear, an-chliste e," he said of the latter. Looking around the room, he spotted someone he knew. Whispering helpfully "Sin fear an tuir," he pointed to a serious-looking man in the distance - it turned out to be Robert Nicholson, curator of the James Joyce Museum and tower in Sandycove. Beside the tower man was Peter Costello, writer and Joycean biographer, who was looking at the work entitled Portrait of the Artist as a Jung Man.
Prof Liam Breathnach of TCD was there with his wife, writer Jill Siddall. John S. Doyle, of What It Says In The Papers, was there with "my beloved", artist Anne Ryder. "It's great to see Tom Mathews working on this scale," said Doyle, who knows the cartoonist from the early days of In Dublin magazine over 20 years ago.
Gavin Friday claimed to have two Mathews works. Actor Gerard Byrne, of Fair City, paid a quick visit before racing off to the Tivoli Theatre. The dashing but casually-dressed John Hunt of Limerick's Hunt Museum, sported a neat little earring. "I usually have two earrings," he said. "And I do possess a suit, if you must know."