Wet, wet, wet as the grandees pitch up at the Oriel
He hasn’t gone away, you know. Michael Colgan was at the fancy unveiling of Nicholas Hely Hutchinson’s new exhibition, From Dublin to Connemara, at the Oriel last Thursday evening. The former Gate Theatre impresario had hot-footed it straight from a reception attended by President Michael D Higgins.
Speaking of presidents, the exhibition on Clare Street was opened by Dr Margaret Downes, first female president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and one of the first female Bank of Ireland directors. Nicholas came with his wife Fifi. Nicholas’s brother, the Honourable Tim Hely Hutchinson, CEO of Hachette UK, attended, as did the artist’s uncle, Mark Hely Hutchinson, former CEO of Bank of Ireland.
This is to say nothing of other grandees such as Lord Charles Hemphill, 6th Baron of Hemphill, and Dr Peter Boylan. Naturally, Mark Nulty (son of Oriel founder Oliver Nulty) and his lovely wife Mandy Williams were also in chic attendance. The latter blonde beauty told your diarist: “The weather tonight is particularly grim. But everyone who came swapped their umbrellas for a glass of wine and busied themselves with chatting and viewing the exhibition.”
The weather on the night certainly wouldn’t have been out of place on a cold, wet, miserable evening in the west of Ireland.
So, in that sense, given the title of the exhibition, From Dublin To Connemara, the inclement weather was perfect, like Mandy Williams’s hair on the night, perhaps.