Amongst them, or rather striding through them was a very striking man and woman, walking hand in hand. Both had long dark hair, long black coats, lots of glinting jewellery and thick, crepe shoes with stacked platforms. Gavin and his future wife Reene. These kids were certainly not like the others. It was like they were living in some parallel universe.

Welcome to Gavin's world.

Gavin Friday, or Fionan Hanvey as he's known to his Ma, is no novice at creating worlds, something of a special skill since childhood. It's already well documented that he was one of the young men who formed the imaginary Lipton Village with his friends Paul Hewson and Derek Rowan. It was a place in which they could get away from the reality of growing up in Ballymun and immerse themselves in alter egos Gavin Friday, Bono and Guggi. The rest, as they say, is history.

And it's no great surprise to find Gavin Friday's name pop up in the credits for Neil Jordan's new movie Breakfast on Pluto.

No surprise because Friday is a renaissance man of many talents . . . singer, songwriter, artist, performer, storyteller, composer and now actor. No great surprise because the original book and movie screenplay was written by Pat McCabe, a friend of Friday's with a shared creative vision. "I befriended Pat in the early '90s, around the time we were doing Mr Pussy's, " he begins, referring to the infamous late-night haunt Friday ran with Bono, Bono's brother Norman Hewson and the eponymous drag queen Mr Pussy. "I bumped into him in a pub and we started to hang out together. We'd go out, and then he'd come back to my and Reene's place in Phibsborough where we'd stay up all night talking, reciting poetry and playing music far too loud.

Poor Reene would come down the stairs at about five in the morning to find two grown men crying to Sean O'Riada's Mna na hEireann, begging us to keep the noise down.

"I told Pat about the world of Shag . . . the world of pom-pom girls and lost souls looking for love that became my last studio album Shag Tobacco. I gave him the lyrics and he wrote an intro piece to accompany it called 'Shagging Tobacco'. A year later, Pat gave me Breakfast on Pluto to read. He'd dedicated the book to me. And to Reene for putting up with the pair of us throughout those noisy times."

It's no surprise then to find Friday in the role of Billy Hatchett, the sexually ambiguous, IRA-sympathising, glam rockinspired showband frontman. A part that was made for him, and a part Friday made his own through lots of improvisation and 110% dedication to the role. "I got lost in Billy Hatchett . . .

grew the sideburns . . . although I didn't go to the Daniel Day extremes, " he laughs, a glint in his eye. "But I grew up in the '70s, I loved the music, the clothes, the whole idiom of the era.

I'm an encyclopaedia of the decade. And I think Breakfast on Pluto is like a hymn to all the Irish couldn't deal with in that time . . . sex, dope, priests riding, homosexuality, the IRA, the whole anti-English thing. The whole lack of tolerance to anything different. Cillian [Murphy]'s character Kitten goes on this great adventure and is part of, or exposed to all these things.

He goes down so many roads, looking for love, and yet he remains this innocent soul. It's a f**ked-up Fellini."

Like everything else he puts his name to, Friday gave his all to the movie, both on screen and in working with Jordan on compiling a soundtrack of meticulously-curated source material and re-recorded songs from the era. "We used original '70s showband musicians for the Mowhawks numbers. I wanted that really shite showband sound . . . and I'm especially proud of our version of 'Wigwambam', " he laughs. The resulting demand for downloads of Pluto's soundtrack proves that Friday's dedication has paid off.

More pricks than kicks The last 12 months has been a crazy year for Friday, one filled with professional highs and personal lows. It was the year he collaborated with his friends U2 on yet another superbly devised world tour, the year he and Jim Sheridan got to work with Quincy Jones on the controversial 50 Cent movie, Get Rich or Die Trying' and, in July, the year when his father died, suddenly, of a heart attack.

"My father and I had always had a difficult relationship, but it was his rejection of me that also fuelled me. We were both stubborn, but I know he made me who I am. We made our peace before he passed on, " Friday recalls. "He was left on a trolley in the hospital for 36 hours and I sat with him throughout. It was inhuman leaving him there while the place filled up with drunks and junkies. I remember at one stage he asked me to hold his hand, and I did. And he quietly commented, 'I don't remember your hand being this big, son.' It'd been that long since we'd been so physically close.

"My father was a conservative man, and it must have been hard for him to deal with a Virgin Prune son. But I was blessed with my mother, " Gavin smiles. "She used to make all our dresses on the sly. I can remember my Da coming home early one evening though, and catching Ma making a pencil skirt for Guggi and a four-yard skirt for me. He just bellowed 'IT'S YOU!' in disgust at her. But my Ma was always so proud of us. She used to wear our badges with pride in front of the neighbours . . . the ones we'd sell in the Dandelion Market. It was all very Breakfast on Pluto actually!"

Everyone who knows the U2 family are aware of Friday's creative input into their various campaigns. Friday himself is slow to take any credit, putting most things down to group decisions, but he will label himself an "aesthetic midwife and bouncer" for the band. "When we get together, it's all spontaneous talk as we work through ideas." And while he'll refer to the ensuing concepts as "a witches brew", he's been responsible for finding the key ingredients in creating Bono's alter ego Mephisto from the Zoo TV tour, and was the one who thought of the little suitcase and heart icons on All That You Can't Leave Behind. Just a couple of 'Gavisms'; there are many more. The bouncer part of Friday's job spec comes from fending the yes men. "I've been there since the beginning, so it's kinda my thing to say when things aren't good enough. . . Or to cut through the shite, " he adds, in his inimitable, forthright way. You certainly wouldn't want to sell U2 a set of Emperor's Robes with Mr Friday in the vicinity.

And there are many other creative endeavours that Gavin has pioneered, not for material gain. Next time you head to the short-term car park in Dublin airport, look to the right of the pay stations. Muc, the giant metal flying pig, was a collaboration Friday initiated that toured schools in Ireland, collecting money for Kosovo. His work with the Irish Hospice Foundation . . . from contributing to its Millennium Whoseday Book to working with long-term musical partner Maurice Seezer and Bono on 2003's immensely successful Peter and The Wolf project . . . earned him a very posh dinner in recognition of the, quite literally, millions he generated for the charity.

We'll say it again . . . singer, songwriter, artist, performer, storyteller, composer and now actor, Friday is a renaissance man of many talents.

And he's staunchly patriotic. Friday looks on himself as a "Gentleman Dub", very much one of the old school who respects the traditions of his city without being overly deferential or sentimental. "But it's a Dublin that has been romanticised by my godfathers' influences. Uncle Paddy was a widower who lived above Pearse Street garda station. He was a very dapper man, a gent who always wore a three-piece suit, who listened to Maria Callas and who used to bring me to art galleries. He was a true Dub, but in the Joycean, old-world way.

And as a Ballymun boy, I'm in love with his Dublin.

"And I hate to see the way it's becoming, " he says, warming to his subject. I feel another Friday belter on the way. "It's this Hubbabubba mentality. . . You remember that big bubble gum you could get? The stuff that barely fits in your mouth? Well, that's what it's like with some of the young ones these days. They want it. Whatever it is. And they want more of it. More drink, more drugs, more mickeys, more taxis. They want the lot and they want it now. It seems more forceful in girls; they're getting brasher and louder all the time."

I ask if Gavin might be getting a bit conservative in his old age. "Me? Hang on, I was in a dress, doing mad things, touring with a band when I was their age. But I was making money and paying my way. Whatever I was banging on about, I earned it. They just sit there screaming for their Hubbabubba. It's the Ann Summerisation of our lives. Once it was just racy innuendo, now it's all edible crotchless knickers.

There's no subtlety any more, and it's the same in Killiney as it is in Tallaght.

"And I don't like some of the other changes in this city." He's on a roll. "Like that Harvey Nichols restaurant. It's like dining in a posh supermarket . . . with a faux U2 backdrop. Or the professional Dubs who go on about 'Real Dublin'. Ah listen, I'm an intense fucker, " he laughs. "And I'm a melodramatic whore.

I love all that pain and angst, but I'll keep it indoors. I'm not into the Morrissey thing."

Another swerve of shore Gavin Friday is not only amusingly articulate, talking in the most wonderfully unique soundbites; he's also completely his own man. This is the gent who uttered the immortal words "nice arse" to the bird in front of him at one Hollywood red carpet event. . . a Ms Nicole Kidman. And who approached a pensive, bead-twiddling Richard Gere with the opening words, "Ah, you're not still into that ole hippie shite are you?"

Movies, movie stars and movie soundtracks are all familiar territory to Friday. He's hung out with them all, and worked with the best. Baz Luhrmann asked Nellee Hooper to find Friday so they could include his anthemic 'Angel' on the enchanting Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, and Friday is Jim Sheridan's right-hand man when it comes to scoring any of his offerings.

In true Friday soundbite style, he refers to the rap music his Quincy Jones/50 Cent collaboration involves as "boybands with guns . . . bling bang", but he's obviously proud of the resulting work. He laughs it off as "a soundtrack for spliffheads", but in total sincerity adds, "I love all my work with Jim; I'm like a woman with a baby. . . It may be the ugliest thing in the world, but I love it."

So, what's next for Gavin Friday? In the pipeline there's some serious art collaboration between himself and Guggi under the moniker GeeGee. The two former Prunes paired up once before, painting a piece for charity, but this is a more serious endeavour. "And I want to get out of the country, " he adds. Surprising for one who loves his home city. "Well, I don't want to move for good, just come and go." He calls this "doing a Chanty", in reference to his friend, the antique dealer Chantalle O'Sullivan, who divides her time between New York and Dublin. "A couple of months here, and a couple of months there . . . that would suit me nicely."

And what about film roles . . . would he get in front of the camera again? "Oh yes. I'd love to play a vicious murderer, or Heathcliff, or a priest. Yes, a priest. What do you think?" He runs a bejewelled hand through his dark curls, pulls on a leather jacket and puts out a fag. "Would I make a good Father Fionan?"