It is not often I feel the need to praise someone who plays a public role in Irish life but this time I do. In an age obsessed with celebrity, where being famous is seen as an achievement itself rather than doing something notable that has the side effect of fame, keeping some space celebrity free is a necessity. Remember after all that this is a country in which last Christmas the Taoiseach Enda Kenny had a two hour meeting with the rock singer Bono to discuss, and I quote, ‘affairs of state.’ Yes, affairs of state. With a singer. I wonder did Dickie Rock get a meeting too. Or maybe that Irish fella that won Big Brother.  Or Brian O’Driscoll’s wife. Or that Mullingar kid in One Direction. Though perhaps, depending on their levels of fame, their time spent with the Taoiseach discussing ‘affairs of state’ was a bit shorter. No one, after all, is more famous than Bono. So forgive me if washing up in the kitchen the other day I was only half paying attention when the actor Gabriel Bryne popped up on the radio. Not for long though.

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