Authors, playwrights and Kerry-born Dubliners made their way through the 1970s-style corridors of the ESB head office on Lower Fitzwilliam Street to reach the party at the top of the building in McLaughlin Restaurant. They were there to hear details of this year's Listowel Writers' Week.
"This will be a difficult week, marking the anniversary of the death of John B. Keane," said David Browne, chairman of the festival and younger brother of Vincent Browne. "We do remember him and miss him so much, that giant of a man who strode along."
He recalled Keane attending committee meetings every year, always sitting at the back, preferring to give out to everyone during the meeting and waiting until later to praise them. The wisdom and the wit "is what we miss . . . and the human side of John B.", he said. The playwright's sister and bother, Peg Schuster and Denis Keane, a retired secondary maths teacher, came to support to the 34th Listowel Writers' Festival.
The Street, a book of poems and songs, "penned by John B. from the age of 17 to his demise", will be published by Mercier Press and launched at the festival, said Browne.
David Marcus, taking on the mantle of the festival's patriarch, said John B. Keane was "not only a great writer but a great person".
Playwright Jimmy Murphy was there ready to caution those who think writing is easy. "It's a long hard road, look beyond rejection," he said.
Listowel man and playwright Tony Guerin, who was largely responsible for instigating the Dublin party, was also among the guests as well as writers Christine Dwyer Hickey and Rose Doyle.
Frank O'Carroll, a Dublin-based primary school teacher from Ballylongford in Co Kerry, came to spread the word about an exhibition during the festival of work by writer Seamus de Faoite, who died in 1980. One of the highlights of the festival will be the announcement of the winner of the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, worth €10,000. The judges, poet and publisher John F. Deane and Irish Times Literary Correspondent Eileen Battersby, have drawn up a short list of five authors: John Banville, Jennifer Johnston, Colum McCann, Keith Ridgeway and William Trevor.
The festival begins on Wednesday, May 28th, and runs until Sunday, June 1st. See www.writersweek.ie