Our recent fundraising dinner in New York has generated tremendous interest and those of us who were involved in putting the event together were delighted, of course, that it was so successful. I heard Paul Rankin chatting to Gerry Kelly on the radio and I think he summed up the whole thing perfectly: "It was held in a very cool penthouse near Broadway in New York. As we were sitting down, you could see Manhattan glittering in the background. It was an out of the world experience. It was just a stunning event".
Paul was part of our team and the food he produced in the kitchen in that apartment was truly stellar: lobster chowder, smoked salmon and lamb, followed by bread and butter pudding - all with a wonderful Northern Ireland twist.
Our guest list was pretty stellar too, as it turned out - headed up by our Patron Liam Neeson and a few of his close friends from the acting fraternity: Ciaran Hinds, Aidan Quinn and the wonderful Meryl Streep. It was very clear that our guests from the Irish-American business community were very taken with the whole thing - not least the wonderfully relaxed performances from Brian Kennedy and Lyric stalwart and double Tony nominee, Conleth Hill, more than ably supported by pianist Brian Connor, cellist Neil Martin and Liam himself, who read a very poignant extract from Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy, a play which premiered at the Lyric back in 1990.
Loretta Brenna Glucksman, the chair of the American Ireland Fund, was our very gracious host for the evening and she deftly conducted a public conversation with our guests towards the end of proceedings which elicited very favourable comments from, among others, the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly. And, of course, as Paul Rankin might say, the proof of the pudding was in the eating - and the great news we can confirm is that we raised quite a bit more than we'd been hoping to on the night: $400,000 and counting!
Such a lot of hard work by so many people went into making the night a success - not least our Development Director, Angela McCloskey - and maybe Lady Luck was smiling down on us too.
Then again, sometimes you can make your own luck!
Mark Carruthers
Lyric Chairman