Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw and Sinead O'Connor may not have been able to make it, but the Owens family were out in force on Tuesday night. It was the Irish premiere of Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy and the night belonged to 15-year-old Eamonn Owens who plays the title role. He was accompanied by his young brother Ciaran who is also in the film, his father Peter Owens and of course, Alan Boyle, his friend both in real life and in the world of the movie.
Eamonn, who won the role after casting director Suzie Figgis had auditioned more than 2,000 schoolboys, said his friends hadn't seen the film yet.
"But when they do, I think they'll be my greatest critics!" he grinned, only slightly fazed by all the attention.
Neil Jordan bounded up on to the stage after the film to the yells of approval from the audience. Neil has just finished working on In Dreams. A big-budget movie, it stars Annette Bening and Robert Downey Junior, who was on parole for a drugs charge at the time. He has since been returned to prison, but will be getting out for a day to do publicity.
"We'll have a chef waiting for him," smiled Neil, "He's having a tough time in there."
Pat McCabe who wrote the original novel and co-wrote the screen play of The Butcher Boy with Neil, was the other star of the night. He greatly enjoyed the making of the film in his home town, Clones, Co Monaghan - particularly as he took a small part in the movie himself (Jimmie the Skite).
"It was like opening the door to your memories. A lot of my old schoolfriends were extras in the film and were wandering around the streets dressed like their parents. Very odd."
Pat, whose new novel Breakfast On Pluto will be published in May, was accompanied by author Dermot Healy and his wife, Helen. Dermot, who like Pat lives in Sligo, is in the middle of a novel "And there's talk of a book of poetry." More than just talk: the book, which will be Healy's second collection of poetry, is with the publishers.
Other familiar faces that flooded into the Savoy and afterwards headed over to the Great Hall in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham for the post-film party included singers Marianne Faithfull and Gavin Fri- day, who could be seen deep in conversation with Pat McCabe; actor John Hurt and his partner Sarah Owens; promoter Denis Desmond, and his wife Caroline Desmond who said her nails were "bitten to the quick" with nerves about tonight's Childline 10th anniversary concert which she is organising.
Architect Sam Stephenson could be seen deep in conversation with the film censor Sheamus Smith and journalist Nell McCafferty, while later at the party, Caroline Sweetman Stephenson chatted with art historian, Dorothy Walker and her son, Corban Walker. Neil Jordan's wife Brenda Rawn was surrounded by Lord Henry Mount Charles, and Kieran and Viv Guinness.