As 1999 opened, a 23-year old Dubliner called Gavin Lambe-Murphy issued a press release announcing that he was Dublin's first It Boy. Paraphrasing Margot Asquith's famous remark when speaking to Jean Harlow, one local wit suggested that in Lambe-Murphy's soubriquet, the G was silent. But many more people were simply baffled. What, after all, is an It Boy and who is Gavin Lambe-Murphy? The answer to the former lies with the latter.
The It concept is English and applies to a well-heeled (if not well-bred) troupe of young women who are famous simply because their names appear consistently in the social columns of newspapers and magazines as ardent attenders of every party on offer. Their most famous exemplar is Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, columnist with the Sunday Times and enthusiastic employer in print of the first-person singular.
Gavin Lambe-Murphy took the principle traits of the English It Girl and applied them to himself. A former fashion student who had spent some time working for Social & Personal magazine, he made sure that he attended every gathering at which journalists and photographers were present and that both noted his presence.
The result was that within a matter of months, his name was being prefixed with the term ubiquitous. His intention realised, he began to announce, via further press releases, plans for a variety of ambitious projects: the publication of a book called The A to Z of Stylish Living; the appearance of "a Sky One documentary on the life of Ireland's latest professional socialite"; the opening of a food outlet named Itsa Bagel; the creation of a members-only drinking club at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Hotel.
That few of his many schemes have come to fruition would hardly seem to concern Mr Lambe-Murphy. By the second half of the year, he had secured two colour pages in the monthly VIP magazine and a weekly column (called, naturally enough, I'm It) in the Sunday Times. He has his own publicist and personal assistant and, on the basis of his own writing, would appear to do little other than shop and socialise.
He does not seem to have anything classifiable as a private life because everything which happens to him is pressed into service as potential copy. Each of his outings in the Sunday Times is accompanied by a photograph showing the strawberry-blond and bespectacled author contentedly smirking at yet another "launch" of a film, shop, restaurant, anything other than a boat.
No occasion, it would seem, is too trivial for his diary. He is an inexhaustible dropper of brand names; a recent column managed no less than 16 product placements as well as generous coverage for the activities of six acquaintances.
But for the most part Mr Lambe-Murphy's preferred subject is himself. If he possesses a sense of irony, it is of the most subtle variety and he would also appear to be immune to mockery. He is ripe for ridicule and yet, so far, has been untouched by anything other than admiration, not least his own.