Imelda and Leo raising a glass
He mightn’t have got the result he wanted but Simon Coveney did get to have a good lunch in Hugo’s on Merrion Row before he headed to the Mansion House around the corner to see Leo get the nod as leader of Fine Gael.
The previous leader of FG had been in Hugo’s the day before. Maybe Enda Kenny left a secret note under the table for Simon?
Gina Murphy, the owner of Hugo’s, is from Mayo; so there is a special bond with Enda, who allegedly calls her his “Ballina girl”.)
“Around the world, people look to Ireland as a country where it doesn’t matter where you come from but where you want to go...” Leo said at the Mansion House.
Where the man-of-themoment and his partner Matt, plus Leo’s parents Miriam and Ashok, and family and friends and Leo’s many supporters went on Friday was to O’Donoghue’s on Merrion Row for celebratory drinks. The beano included Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Arts Heather Humphreys as well as TDs Eoghan Murphy and John Deasy (hard-working Waterford TD and wife of the equally hard-working RTE mainstay Maura Derrane), plus Senator Catherine Noone and many others.
At 11.30pm Leo and gang departed for The Carpenter pub in Dublin West to continue the celebrations.
Two nights earlier, Dublin’s woman-of-the-moment Imelda May was also celebrating — the final night of her three sold-out shows at Bord Gais Energy Theatre. The party at Cafe H in Grand Canal Dock on Wednesday night, which went on until 3am, featured everyone from the proprietor Rita Crosbie with husband Harry to Imelda herself with parents, Tony and Madge, plus her sisters and other family members, as well as Jack Lukeman and partner.