Byline: PHILIP NOLAN
TONIGHT, while you are sitting at home watching The X Factor, StrictlyCome Dancing or Winning Streak, a couple of hundred socialites will be donningcrinolines or pantaloons and adjusting their powdered periwigs.
Then, leaving the past to one side in a nod to the altogether more avariciouspresent, they will check their Rolex Oysters to make sure they're in time forthe horse-drawn carriages whichwilltake them along the candlelit avenue of the Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt hotel.
And there they will join solicitor-to-the-stars Gerald Kean at the 18th-centurytheme party to mark his 50th birthday as, somewhere in the background,Bananarama anachronistically belt out 'T Ain't What You Do (It's The Way ThatYou Do It).
Kean is a past master at this sort of thing, if that is a happy boast. He wasone of the first people in Ireland to stick his head above the parapet and makea virtue of conspicuous consumption, back when he and his estranged wife,Clodagh, were a staple of the gossip columns.
Their rise to prominence predates the start of the Celtic Tiger years, but thatwas the era that brought them notoriety and, ironically, both the boom andtheir marriage foundered at much the same time.
In retrospect, they were the standard bearers for a new Ireland, one wheremoney was spent as if it was going out of fashion and good taste was oftensacrificed on the altar of excess.
After the belt-tightening years of the Eighties, it was as if everyone wantedto put as much distance between themselves and penury as possible, and thetrend reached its apex this year when, on leaving the wedding celebrations ofJP McManus's daughter, it was the guests who each received a e500 gold Cartierpen.
Weddings, as we shall see, are as potent an invitation down the path to CelticTiger vulgarity for the rich as they are for the less wealthy among us. Themain difference is that an ordinary bride might take to the floor with her newhusband while the DJ plays Three Times A Lady by Lionel Richie; but for Sue AnnMcManus, Lionel popped in and sang it personally - for a small financialconsideration, of course.
But birthdays are the other event which can suck money from the pockets of thegullibly wealthy. Ten years ago, for Gerry Kean's 40th birthday, Clodagh flew70 of his friends to Paris to help him celebrate. For Clodagh's own 40th, in2002, Gerry returned the favour, whisking 150 people to a schloss near Salzburg- and giving Clodagh a timeshare in a private jet, a story that sent rivuletsof fear trickling through their small, bitchy, covetous and enviouskeep-up-with-the-Joneses world.
Over the years, the list of presents they bought for each other was liftedstraight from the template beloved of Lotto winners who come into new moneyquickly - there were Harley-Davidson motorbikes, a Jaguar sports car, a e70,000diamond necklace, a speedboat, even a Wurlitzer jukebox for the semidetached,crenellated house they shared in Killiney, Co. Dublin.
Of course, Gerry Kean has a new girlfriend now, and she is no stranger to thisworld herself. Lisa Murphy was the fiancee of hoofer Michael Flatley, and whenthe Lord of the Dance proposed to her in Monaco in 2002, he did so in front ofa plane-full of their friends and, remarkably, a group of journalists speciallyselected to record the moment.
When Flatley finally married last year, to Niamh O'Brien, at his Castlehydehome in Co. Cork, he further blurred the lines between what is a personalcelebration and a public event by having the guests send their RSVPs to hispublicist, Ger Roche. Though he at least had the good grace not to sell therights to his marriage to any of the celebrity magazines, Flatley somehowconspired to make his wedding just as bling as if he had been a premiershipfootballer who handed all the arrangements over to Hello! or OK!
His bride wore a Badgley Mischka ivory-beaded gown with a vintage lace veilthat was said to have cost in the region of e100,000 and she was driven to thechurch in Flatley's e450,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom. The couple were toasted withChanoine Tsarine champagne, which costs up to e500 a bottle.
By the time the guests drifted home, thetotalspendhadcometoan estimated e1million - yet Flatley's was far from the most lavish weddingever seen in Ireland.
The bar was raised back in 2002, when horse breeder John Magnier's beloved24-year-old daughter, Katie, married trainer David Wachman. The day cost anestimated e3million: nine bridesmaids wore Vera Wang dresses, the guest listincluded Sir Alex Ferguson, back in the days before he fell out with Magnierover Rock of Gibraltar, and the wedding band included Ronan Keating and RodStewart.
Hiringacelebritysingerwasan emerging trend that later became a deluge. When property developer SeanMulryan celebrated his 50th in 2003 at hisBallymoreEustacestudfarm, guests not only enjoyed food cooked by Michelin-starred chef Derry Clarkeof L' crivain, washed down with 300 bottles of 1995 Bollinger champagne, theywere also treated to a performance by Debbie Harry and Blondie.
GAA legend Micheal ' Muircheartaigh was MC, Brendan Grace told the jokes andthe bill for the night was an estimated e500,000.
The musical act was of a different vintage when Co. Wicklow girl Sinead Kellyshot to national prominence after it emerged that her stepfather, millionaireJohn Kelly, paid e100,000 to have Girls Aloud perform at Sinead's party at aDublin hotel. The gesture might have remained a secret had Sinead been able toresist the allure of sticking photos up on her Bebo page.
'We had the three-course meal and the speeches and everyone sang Happy Birthday- and then, all of a sudden, Girls Aloud walked around the corner and startedsinging,' she later explained. 'I was completely astonished and amazed but itwas brilliant as I'm such a big fan.' But if impressing your friends at 21 isimportant, it seems never to go out of fashion. Last year, three of Ireland'sbest-known entrepreneurs hit 70 - Michael Smurfit of the packing giant SmurfitKappa, Tony O'Reilly of Independent News and Media and the late Tony Ryan,founder of Ryanair.
Smurfit did what he always does and invited 150 friends on a weeklongMediterranean cruise, Ryan held his bash at his Lyons Estate in Celbridge, Co.Kildare, while, elsewhere in the county, O'Reilly had a togapartyathisCastlemartin mansion. Here, though, the emphasis was about keeping details outof the papers. Tony Ryan's protege, Michael O'Leary, spent e1million when hemarried Anita Farrell in 2003 and held the reception at his Gigginstown Houseproperty in Co. Westmeath. Four marquees, one each for dining, dancing,drinking and chilling out, were erected to serve the 300 guests, includingCharlie McCreevy and Mary Harney, who were asked to donate to charity ratherthan buying gifts.
Yet the wedding that dwarfs them all is that of Sue Ann McManus to Cian Foleyin July this year. Her father JP McManus's new 40,000sq ft Martinstown Studhomewas finished in time for the wedding, yet he still had a marquee with an evenbigger floor area erected in the grounds. Guests were served roast beef formain course, but each of the other three courses, controversially, differed forthe ladies and gentlemen. As well as Lionel Richie singing the bride'sfavourite song, Billy Joel was on hand to perform his greatest hits for the1,500 guests.
'It was unbelievable,' one said afterwards. 'It was just like being at aconcert and there were lots of jokes about Oxegen, exceptobviouslyitwasa much nicer tent. I have to say the whole thing was incredible.' The celebrityguests included singer Andrea Corr, actor Clive Owen, Aston Villa footballmanager Martin O'Neill, Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn, former taoiseachAlbert Reynolds and John Magnier, relieved perhaps, to pass on the baton ofbeing the most indulgent daddy in Ireland.
So, wealthy and all as he may be, Gerald Kean is not in that league. His partytonight will be fun - whatever else people say about him, all agree he is agood host and his parties are well thought-out and executed (though, as oneadds, 'he always tells you how much everything cost') - and guests will dineout of stories from it until, oh, his 60th, one supposes.
As well as Bananarama, Aslan and Ronan Keating will perform. Mr Kean plans todress as Louis XIV while Lisa Murphy will be Marie Antoinette. The guest listincludes footballer Norman Whiteside, author Cecelia Ahern, her mother Miriamand her boyfriend, chef Terry, and Boyzone star Keith Duffy and his wife, Lisa.
Yet, somehow, there is a feeling that everyone is going through the motions andthe excess is now all just a little bit jaded and passe. The problem is that,in the background, the same party planners relentlessly mine the same oldthemes. Mr Kean wanted to avoid this and said: 'The idea for the party was myown. I wanted to do something other than a black-tie ball.' Yet the theme hasalready been popular elsewhere, most notably in a notorious Elton John party.
In any case, Mr Kean's friends are alsoamongthemostactivein Dublin social circles. The same facespopupateveryturnin Dublin, the party gene pool as yet unrefreshed by the next generation ofhedonists happy to flash their newly minted cash.
Maybe this is because we finally are seeing the emergence of second-generationwealth, which tends to be more secretive and less in your face; those whopossess it are more preoccupied with proving they can get by on merit ratherthan just trading on the family name, and as a consequence are far too busy forself-indulgent frippery.
So as well as being a birthday party, Gerald Kean's Franco-Palladian fantasytonight may also be something of a wake, a farewell to the parties thrown byself-made men for themselves and for those they undoubtedly love, and whichalways seemed to highlight the tension between those uncomfortable bedfellows- great wealth and dodgy taste.
