President Catherine Connolly could scarcely have picked a better day for her first Áras an Uachtaráin garden party. While the blue skies and warm breezes delighted everyone, few seemed as happy as the Cork women in the large pink cowboy hats waiting for the line dancing to begin.
“The President was down with us a couple of weeks ago and we asked if we could come up and she said we’d be most welcome,” said Kathleen Sheehan from Togher when asked how she’d blagged her ticket and why she was wearing such a big hat.
“We’ve been practising our line dancing for a week now and once the band starts playing we’ll be up and hopefully get the crowd going,” she added.
Fellow line dancer and pink hat wearer Tessa O’Connell was sitting at a table on the lawn clearly awed by the scene she’d unexpectedly found herself in.
“When I walked in and saw the carpets and the chandeliers and everything, it was just fabulous. We’re going to make a day of it. We’ll be out till eight o’clock,” she whispered.
Almost everyone among the 350 or so souls wandering the perfectly manicured lawns – and marvelling at the trees planted by everyone from Queen Victoria to Pope Francis – looked as awed as Tessa.
There were people from charities and community groups and the odd friend of the President and her husband, Brian McEnery.
On the Queen’s Walkway, the gravel path that is home to Vickie’s Tree and one planted by a Grand Old Duke of York (not that one) the Féinics string quartet played Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty, while in the walled garden nearby The Tenters played mellow jazz.
Catherine Connolly greets guests at the first garden party of her presidency at Áras an Uachtaráin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
Two women took it all in, starry-eyed.
“Our husbands know Brian,” Sally Daly from Kilkenny said when asked what they were doing here. “They know each other from Cork,” she explained, adding that what she was really looking forward to was the food. “I can’t wait to have a sandwich,” she said in a low and conspiratorial voice.
Maeve Mangan nodded happily at the thought of the fancy food and then hauled her husband Malachy into the huddle, explaining that he was the one who scored the invites.
“I was in college with Brian in Cork,” he said. “I have stories that I could tell you about those days but you wouldn’t want to hear them,” he laughed.
When asked if the invite was a surprise, he explained he’d dropped pretty big hints the last time they met up at a college reunion. “I had to do bit of wrangling.”
Mary Gaffney was there as part of a Women’s Shed in Dunleer, Co Meath. “Is there any prosecco in there?” she wondered, looking towards the marquee where the main event was to take place. There wasn’t, but she didn’t mind and was happy with whatever was served.
President Catherine Connolly and her husband Brian McEnery chatting with guests during her first presidential garden party. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Nearby, four members of the Havana Club Trio played cool salsa before the garden party moved en masse into the marquee when sandwiches and sweet treats were served to a soundtrack of trad music as the guests waited for their host.
Then an Army officer took to the stage and told everyone to be upstanding and in walked the President, her husband and a small entourage.
“When I was shown to my seat I thought I was going to escape having to say a few words,” she began. “It’s good that you are sitting because I have about 50 pages here,” she added ominously.
Her speech was much shorter than that in the end. After she expressed delighted at hosting the first garden party of the 10th president and thanked all those who had made it possible, she returned to her seat and waited for the line dancing to begin.
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