Jean Kennedy Smith’s daughter Kim flies in for Mr Pussy book launch
Remember Jean Kennedy Smith? Some people in this country will never forget her, now the one remaining child born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
The former US Ambassador to Ireland (she served from 1993 to 1998) brought significant colour to the role. No dullard she, Jean was a regular visitor with the likes of Bono, Jim Sheridan and Gavin Friday to Mr Pussy’s De Luxe Cafe on Suffolk Street in 1994.
“I remember she came in one lunchtime,” Alan Amsby, aka Mr Pussy told me. “I was furiously trying to divert attention away from the pictures of Gavin Friday’s Flying Mickeys on the wall. Then, she saw them and, being the diplomat, she said nothing,” Alan said, adding that he became close friends with Jean’s daughter Kim.
“One night Kim gave me a present of a leopard skin coat that I still have and I still sometimes wear onstage. Then she moved back to America and we lost touch.”
The plot thickened, however, last weekend when Alan was interviewed on Sunday with Miriam on RTE Radio 1 to promote his book, Before I Forget to Remember. Happily, Kim Kennedy Smith heard it on her radio at home in Arizona and sent Alan an email with her mobile number on it. (The moral of this story is that RTE might not do child programmes any more but they do have a superwoman with lots of kids whose shows are heard as far away as Amerikay. Indeed Miriam is launching Mr Pussy’s book next Wednesday in Lillie’s Bordello on Grafton Street at 7pm.)
Anyway, last Sunday evening when Alan read his long-lost friend’s email, he rang Kim and they were soon waxing lyrical about the good old days of Dublin in the 1990s.
They were obviously so good because Kim booked a flight to Dublin from Arizona — ostensibly for the launch of Before I Forget to Remember.
But also there was the little matter of her birthday, which falls next Tuesday and which she plans to celebrate in Dublin with Alan.
Doubtless a ‘purrfect’ evening — and hangover to match — awaits with Mr Pussy.