Ouch! Now, that, Denis, is a genuine show of true devotion...

FOR more years than I care to remember, Caroline Downey and Denis Desmond were a staple of the society pages. It sometimes seemed like barely a week went by without one, other or both of them getting a mention in the gossip columns.

He was the hard-nosed entrepreneur who started out booking gigs for nohope performers and ended up as the biggest concert promoter in the country. She was the glamorous woman about town widely admired for her sense of style, business acumen and sterling work for charity.

Together with their three children, they lived in some considerable splendour among the pleasant surroundings of the so-called Killiney ‘rock-broker’ belt. Life must have been pretty good.

But then it all unravelled in the most spectacular fashion. In a lengthy interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday in October 2013, Caroline admitted that their 32-year relationship had been over for the past 18 months.

Though she didn’t go into the precise nitty-gritty, it didn’t require a PhD in semantics to figure out that Denis had been a very naughty boy somewhere along the way. Here is a sample of what she had to say at the time: ‘Denis and I work closely together and I still love him. He is still my best friend.

‘But marriage for me is based on love, friendship, respect and trust. Parts of that are gone, particularly trust. When you lose trust, it takes a long time to build it again.

‘That’s what we are trying to do – rebuild that trust, create a new relationship that works for us. Denis is a really good man, but over the last couple of years he has made some very poor choices.’

She added: ‘I am a really strong person and I don’t really fall apart easily – but when your marriage and family life as you know it goes overnight... I was crushed.’

You get the picture, I’m sure. If Caroline didn’t necessarily sound like she was in a bad place at the time of that interview, it was clear that she had been in the recent past.

Fast-forward almost two years, however, and things appear to have taken a turn that she almost certainly wouldn’t have anticipated back then.

Caroline has posted a picture on Instagram appearing to show her husband’s fist with the initials ‘ CD’ tattooed on his wedding ring finger. Beneath it, she wrote: ‘Yep... he has lost his mind!’

According to a report over the weekend, there was no shortage of cyber well-wishers delighted to express their approval at this unexpected turn of events. One said: ‘That is so sweet. x.’

Another was slightly more animated: ‘OMG I have just seen this! Love it!’

OF course, there are cynics amongst us who no doubt wonder what a woman in her mid-50s is doing with an Instagram account in the first place. They might also query whether it is entirely appropriate for her to be sharing such personal family details, especially given the former turbulence on the domestic front.

Such is the way of the world, though. There will always be people who see the negative in everything.

No, what this is really about is the fact that an errant husband has been prepared to make such a public dis- play of commitment. It is also a serious act of penitence for his sins, of course, whatever they might have been.

Let’s face it, getting a tattoo on one of your fingers must be a pretty sore business. We are practically talking needle on bone here.

I’m told that even getting inked on fleshier parts of the anatomy feels like having broken glass dragged over your skin repeatedly.

It might have been less painful for both of them if he’d just kept his wedding ring on in the first place.

Still, they seem to be happily together again and that’s the most important thing.

I just hope they don’t go the way of so many other couples who have publicly declared their love through the medium of body art. It’s not quite the curse of Hello!, but it isn’t far off it either.

Probably the best-known example i nvolved Johnny Depp, who got ‘Winona Forever’ etched on his upper arm a couple of years before splitting from Winona Ryder. But the list of other well-known figures who have done likewise and regretted it afterwards – Heidi Klum, Angelina Jolie, The Artist Formerly Known As Cheryl Cole – is longer than you might think.

Pamela Anderson had Tommy Lee’s first name tattooed on her ring finger during their ill-fated marriage.

So, given the way all that ended in tears, let’s just hope that Denis Desmond manages to behave himself from now on.

Mind you, if he doesn’t or if Caroline falls out of love for some other reason, all may not be lost.

Famously, Johnny Depp had his tattoo redone to read ‘Wino Forever’. Meanwhile, La Anderson got ‘Tommy’ changed to ‘Mommy’.

Though I know absolutely nothing about these things, I presume getting the initials ‘CD’ altered to ‘CB’ would require the least possible amount of effort and pain.

And all Denis would need to do then would to be to hope that, say, Carla Bruni or Christie Brinkley take a shine to him.