The party was unusual for, among other things, hosting an exhibition in a greenhouse
Exploring darkest Ranelagh on Thursday evening, Google maps in hand, I was interrupted by a smiling woman with a pet greyhound who said : “It looks like the Mafia are in town.”
Mind you, the first person I met there was a fellow member of what we humorously call the “Dublin-Monaghan Mafia”: a group of Oriel County emigrés determined to infiltrate the upper echelons of Irish society and bring glory, or at least notice, to our small county.Making a show of us – Frank McNally on a 1927 film that outraged Irish America
“Paolo” – an engineer largely responsible for designing a well-known Dublin light rail system that I also won’t identify - was in charge of directions, apparently. So imagine my surprise when I got to the party and couldn’t find them. Concerned, I rang “Sarah”, who – audibly blushing – admitted: “We’re a little lost.”Happily, they arrived in time for what some of us considered the highlight of the evening.
Kearney won his medal for a gunfight at a place called Upton Wood. Not to be confused with the “Lonely Woods of Upton”, from the War of Independence ballad, that one was in France. But he did have an engagement in Cork soon afterwards, marrying a woman from that county whose name was apt given the location of the exhibition: “Winnifred E Greenish”.Used as an adjective, “Greenish” would understate the political history of Oakley Road, where Canadian ambassadors now reside.
But at a state dinner in Canada in 1948, it is said, he took offence at insults including the placement on the table of a replica of “Roaring Meg” – the cannon used by loyalists in the Siege of Derry. Personal annoyance then persuaded him to go further than originally intended in a press conference.
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