AS ONE might expect with a larger-than-life personality such as Gerald Kean, you hear him coming long before you actually see him: "Bomp-bomp-bomp!" he trumpets as he descends the stairs of his offices on Pembroke Street.

"Young Quentin?" he bellows.

(That's compliment one, which hits its mark nicely. ) His voice bounces off the walls before Kean . . . a bite-sized, slimmed-down version . . . finally appears in reception. "I like your style, " he says, eyeing the dead rabbit on my head. (That's compliment two. ) He grips my hand, his eyes dancing with delight, as if we were old friends. "Let's go to lunch! You like Diep La Shaker?"

I say, I do. His entrance is not stage-managed, exactly, but it's not lacking in self-awareness either. Kean, solicitor to the stars and society-page regular, has made me feel pretty damn good about myselff and we've only just met. He is what personality tests might describe as a "people person". After this start, he would have to do something really stupid like stick me with the bill to screw this one up.

His sun-kissed, all-smiling face is familiar. It has lit up a thousand social pages, mostly with his then-wife Clodagh Kean, also a solicitor, charity fundraiser and immaculately turnedout platinum blonde. Before the economic boom, Gerald and Clodagh were a picture of happiness, new money and the subject of gushing stories about his share in a private jet, their castellated home in Killiney and boldface clients/friends:

Paul Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, Simon Le Bon, Ronan Keating, the McDowells and the Aherns.

Before their split last year after 18 years of marriage, they were the quintessential couple of the 1980s, even if they didn't come to prominence until the 1990s. They dared showcase their extravagant champagne-glass-clinking lifestyle, with tales of diamond necklaces, Viennese balls and speedboats. The public loved to hate them, yet many secretly wanted to be them or, at least, have their kind of lolly. But the Keans never really received bad press until the Daily Mail and its Fleet Street kinfolk came along.

Gerald and Clodagh had willingly invited magazines like VIP into their gilded home, but they were too busy smiling for the camera to notice that the newly arrived tabloid press had quietly gatecrashed their party. Their opulence was tailor-made for the British scandal sheets and rumblings of their imminent marriage break-up was a prime opportunity, with unfounded allegations of a "love child", which never did materialise, and the latest plot twist: he is stepping out with Michael Flatley's ex, Lisa Murphy.

From his radio appearances, some of his views are already well known. "The Personal Injury Assessment Board is a joke and failing miserably, " he tells me. He also believes in zero tolerance. "When I walk down Grafton Street every night and see people urinating, spitting and particularly vulgar language is an absolute disgrace. It wouldn't happen in cities that I like to spend time in, particularly Miami."

On Fine Gael and particularly Enda Kenny, Gerald is more candid. "You'd nearly be better if you put in a leader with long hair and an earring in his nose because people would then talk about him, " he says. "I regularly come across people who struggle to come up with the name of Enda Kenny. Do you know A the differences between the policies of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael? Because I struggle."

But we know Gerald more for his private life. He now has a "townhouse" (his word) on Ailesbury Road and bought an estate in Wicklow called Drayton Manor. "It has its own island, " he says. "I'll get you down there for a drink at some stage." One tabloid newspaper . . . guess! . . . flew a helicopter over the property, acquired the plans and produced a two-page spread with an artist's impression. "I was sitting having coffee one morning reading the paper and I nearly died. I didn't recognise my own house!"

Worse was to come. During the never-proven yet oftrepeated 'love-child' allegations and marriage break-up, he was under constant tabloid surveillance. "I had two photographers outside my house on shift work 24 hours a day for three weeks." And, now that he is dating Lisa Murphy, the media scourge can only get worse. "The difficulty I have with the media here is the runaway tabloid train, " he insists. "My problems haven't been bad publicity, but publicity that has been misleading or false."

He and Lisa are already getting papped. "A photographer jumped out in front of us outside Bang and followed us. It was the only photograph they got of us. We haven't posed for pictures, except when I was the guest speaker at the Cork Chamber of Commerce lunch." So, when they do start posing, it will become more frenzied? "All I'll say on thatf it's early stages yet." He then gives me a half-nod, half-wink.

Did their shared battles with the media help Lisa and Gerald to connect? "Well, yes. We both understand the position better than, you know, someone who wasn't in that situation."

But Gerald rethinks that statement. "We just got on well. We met in the Four Seasons. We were just introduced to each other." And when he saw her, was he, like, 'Wow!'? "No, I was much more impressed with her persona, her person. I was surprised when I started talking to her, very pleasantly surprised."

He thought she wasf how does one put this delicately? Different? "Different, yes." It may be early days, but Gerald goes off-the-record to speak of her spiritual side and other personal challenges. Like Gerald, she is not media shy (she works as a model). It's interesting, I say, that even he, Gerald, who is so used to seeing inaccurate representations of himself in the media, couldn't help form an impression of Lisa.

"That's right. I would think that that is the pointf" "When I meet someone it's very important not to judge a book by the cover and I certainly would have had a different impression of Lisa than what she is. But a lot of people would have said that of me as well. I give the benefit of doubt to anybody I meet and, if they cross me, well thenf I'm slow to forgive." I laugh, a little nervously. We're eye-to-eye. "That's putting it mildly, by the way." Then he starts to laugh. "If you're very honest with me, if you ask me a question, I'll give you an honest answer."

He is, I point out, not so larger-than-life as he once was.

What's the secret behind his weight loss? "I've been diagnosed with having diabetes, so that helped me." He chuckles at this.

"I've been very lucky in that it's a mild form, but it means a change of lifestyle. More men are prone to it over the age of 40, eating and not exercising and putting on weight . . . that seems to be a very important factor. Today, as opposed to eating vegetables and a curry, I'd normally be eating chips and curry."

How could he feel "lucky" that he's got diabetes? "It's good luck because I may have continued enjoying good wine and food and everything else, but I could have had a heart attack, I could still. But at least now I'm working out on a regular basis:

treadmill, approximately 40 minutes to an hour, five or six days a week. I never did it before. I'm very careful about what I eat and drink. I never drank a lot anyway. I would attend 10% of what I'm invited to, but that is still as much as four or five nights a week."

Oh, dear. I can see the headlines now . . . "Champagne lifestyle catches up with Gerald Kean". But he has hardly a bad word to say about anyone . . . not a particularly Irish trait . . . and he is as kind to himself. "Friends tell me they're asked, 'What's he like?' And they say, 'He's actually a great guy.' But the persona would be that he's an upstart."

Gerald has pulled out the big guns with editors on occasion, but he says this is not because he's being painted in an unflattering light. "It's wrong to argue that somebody like Gerald Kean doesn't want bad publicity. That's rubbish! Bad publicity comes with the territory and that's that. The issue is breach of privacy like a newspaper going to my daughter's school to find out what class she's in and what fees are being paid. I was on a golf course and got a phone call from the principal saying the press is in the school."

There are the questions . . . some, inevitably, from other lawyers . . . about where the money comes from. Gerald didn't grow up with a silver spoon. Born in 1957 in Cork, his late father was a garda seargant and "my mother was a Hamilton", related to late chief justice Liam Hamilton. He studied law at UCD, where he met Clodagh, before setting up his own practice. He is also non-executive chairman of Asia Abalone PLC, which specialises in high-end shellfish and is listed on London's Alternative Investment Market.

"I did very well when I started out, " he says. "I had a couple of lucky breaks in property and music. I was instructed to act, shortly after I went out in practice on my own, for Merchant Investors in the purchase of the Monarch Property Portfolio in 1988." He was involved in the sale of the Shelbourne Developments site on Moore Street and Nutgrove shopping centre. "I was very lucky to get that deal." But his practice, buoyed by his notoriety, also does a steady stream of conveyancing and personal injury cases.

He's used to such questions and bah-humbug. "I was a victim of begrudgery and jealousy 10 years ago because I was a little bit against the tide, as I was doing well then and, thank God, I'm still doing well, but I don't find it anything like it was.

A lot of my clients are taxi drivers, hairdressers. The only begrudgery you get is within your own profession and I don't even find that anymore. Everybody seems to be doing well.

And that's the position." Those last four words are spoken like a true diplomat or, even, politician.

"I've represented bands like Duran Duran and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, " he adds. "Some people say I went off and identified the music market, but I built up a large personal practice based on the American philosophy of communication."

Michael Portillo and Norman Lamont provided an introduction to Princess Anne, who he has entertained. "I've been very lucky with extremely loyal friends and business acquaintances. I bought a beautiful home in Killiney, but at the time when the property market was very low."

"At the very outset, " he says, "I remember people asking Clodagh and I for our photographs, Clodagh being a very attractive woman, and we refused and were criticised for it.

Nobody knew us at the time. People assume that all I do is hang out with high-profile people in the music business and footballers. There is the perception that I only deal with the elite.

The strength of the practice is not necessarily the celebrity business. My philosophy is that everyone who comes in the door is equally important."

He married Clodagh in 1987 and had one daughter, Kirsten.

A recent gossip headline read, "Clodagh fury as Gerald parties". It referred to his 49th birthday party at the K Club with his "gorgeous girlfriend Lisa Murphy". Is Clodagh as furious as the papers imply? "No, not correct. Clodagh is wonderful and always will be. Clodagh is never furious. She's more even-handed than I am. We had a fantastic marriage and there was never, ever anybody else involved. Clodagh knows that and anybody close to me knows that.

"I can't say one bad word about Clodagh and nobody could, " he says. "She's a very professional solicitor, she does incredible work for charity. And the greatest gift I ever got in my life was thanks to her, the most stunning daughter, and there's not a day that goes by that she doesn't give both Clodagh and myself incredible joy."

Does he believe in love that lasts a lifetime? "I do, I do. I think love can last forever. But the person you love has to be your best friend and, if they're not your best friend, then they're surely going to be always your friend anyway. Love comes in different varieties. The love that's related to beauty is a waste of time. There has to be integration on many levels and, if that integration fails or if you begin to feel that you're no longer number one, then there's a danger the relationship is on sticky ground."

Before leaving, Gerald brings up another subject . . . out of the blue. "One point I've tried to clear up before is in relation to this alleged love child, which I've never had." I'm all ears.

"People wondered at the time why I gave an interview. I didn't give an interview. I was asked by a newspaper that was running a story about a love child for a comment. I couldn't sleep thinking about this. It was like saying you were accused of robbing a bank and did you have any comment to make, so I rang them back and said three sentences. . ."

He is interrupted by a baby's gurgling. It has been a constant during our lunch. It is his mobile ring tone, which his daughter downloaded and put on his phone. (But I'm not about to make any jokes about that now. ) He adds, "I told the journalist I never had a love child, I never had another relationship while I was married to Clodagh and if any woman said otherwise come forward. What shocked me was to wake up and see it on the front page of two or three national newspapers. And on pages three, four and five too."

But, whether he likes it or not, he is still big news in the social pages, yet he still remains surprisingly unguarded. If it's true the public likes to see rich people in nice clothes lead unhappy lives, they would be sorely disappointed by Gerald Kean.

As he leaves the restaurant . . . picking up the bill on the way . . . I observe a man who doesn't appear to be the least bit unhappy. And, if he ever had an inflated opinion of himself in the past, it has since shrunk along with his suit size. In fact, I suspect he never did have a big ego.

Perhaps, as he himself might suggest, that is just how he appeared in the photographs.