The self-effacing Con Houlihan remained resolutely at a far corner of the counter in Dublin's Doheny and Nesbitts bar, signing copies of his latest book, More Than a Game. Behind him, a growing number of admirers spoke warmly and appreciatively of the great sports writer from Kerry.
He's a hero, agreed director Maurice Healy and cameraman, Nick O'Neill, who are currently making a documentary about Con Houlihan for RTÉ.
"People were queuing outside the hotel in Castleisland to shake his hand when we took him down there exactly one year ago," said Healy.
Carmel Curran, an assistant nurse from Waterville, Co Kerry, and a member of the Kerry Association, queued with five books for autographing.
"I turn to his column first every Sunday in the Sunday World, it's always a joy to read," she said.
Former international rugby player Mick Galwey, who played with Castleisland as Con Houlihan did many years before him, officially launched the book, which is a selection of Houlihan's sporting essays published by Liberties Press.
With 42 caps for Ireland, Galwey, who comes from the same part of the country as Houlihan and retired from the game last year, said: "My own family and Con's go back a long way. He and my mother were in school together. She says he was always the best pupil in the class. He taught my older brother, Patrick, when he was at school in Currow (Co Kerry). He's one of our own."
Restaurateur Brian Kennedy, of the Coffee Club in Haddington Road, explained his Kerry connection."I'm half Kerry," he said proudly, adding that his father won six All- Ireland football medals playing with Kerry.
Tony Hanahoe, a solicitor and former captain of the Dublin Gaelic football team in the 1970s, said Houlihan's column in the Evening Press was "an original and at the same time he was an astute judge of what was going on . . . There was a void when he left. He wasn't just a sports journalist. He was a character himself."
Also there were Pat Rabbitte, leader of the Labour Party, and writers Gordon Snell and Dan Binchy, from Charleville, Co Cork.
"He was a legend when I was growing up," said Binchy.
"He's a tremendous writer," added John Kelly, a former colleague from the Sunday Press. "He's the last of a breed, a unique once-off".