Alcohol was not the only thing banned from a celebration yesterday to mark Saudi Arabia's national day. Frank McNally reports.
Guests at Dublin's Four Seasons Hotel stood around sipping fruit juices and waiting for the moment when a glass would be tinkled and silence called for a few words from our hosts. But the moment never came.
The two central elements of any Irish celebration - drink and speeches - were conspicuously missing. And much as we admired the Saudis' total abstinence from both, there was palpable unease among the gathering until it was explained that in Arab hospitality, formalities are considered over once the guests are welcomed.
Indeed, the welcome did not fall short in formalities. Even journalists, who quietly sneak into these events and then blend with the wallpaper, found themselves announced to the room and greeted by a receiving line of robed Saudi diplomats.
But thereafter, we were left to ourselves among guests that included Gay Byrne and the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, along with a list of ambassadors the length of Ailesbury Road.
There was no evidence of the scheme immortalised in a classic episode of Yes Minister where diplomats drank furtively at a Saudi reception by frequently slipping away to take urgent phone calls from a "Mr Johnny Walker".
Pictures of Mecca adorned one corner of the room, while a promotional film played on a giant screen. In keeping with the hosts' reticence, the sound was turned down.
But the Saudis did have a message to convey. As guests left, they were presented with two kinds of dates: edible ones in boxes flown in specially from the Gulf, and chronological ones in a booklet entitled Saudi Arabia's Progress in the War on Terror.
This was a blow-by-blow account of shoot-outs and arrest operations carried out by Saudi forces against al-Qaeda over the past 18 months. It made sober reading - not that we needed sobering. And expanding on it in a press briefing, the deputy head of mission to Britain and Ireland claimed that every al-Qaeda operative known to have been active in Saudi Arabia was now either dead or in custody.
Ambassador Ferej Alowedi conceded there could still be "sleeper" units in the kingdom. "It's difficult to know, because they're doing nothing." But he insisted the Saudi government was pursuing those who had "hijacked" Islam for political ends.
Of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden to the Saudi regime, he added: "We've had a lot of problems in the past. In 1920 we nearly had a civil war, but we managed to avoid it. Compared with that, this is peanuts."