Sharon had been shooting the video for Runaway, and, staying on with her American wardrobe stylist, had "drunk to every train going home and never took any of them". She had split up with somebody just five days before and, she says, "was just in one of those moods that I didn't need to go out with anybody again. I really wanted my independence."

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Gavin came up to the young musician, then virtually unknown, and said: "Could I ask you for some free advice? I was going to go and see if there was anywhere open afterwards is there anywhere else to go?"

"I knew he fancied me," says Sharon.

They chatted for hours "religion, music, family, what makes us tick, what we want in life" in the bar, then in the lobby, and then on a park bench in St Stephen's Green. As dawn rose on the park, Sharon told him she had no intention of going out with anybody.

Ms Corr went back to her accommodation (she was sharing a room in the Shelbourne with Andrea and Caroline £75 a night,with two of them sleeping on the floor) and Gavin to his. He got lost walking home. But Gavin didn't mind. He had arranged to see the girl at lunchtime outside the National Gallery.

"We went to see Jack B Yeats," remembers Sharon. "I always loved Men's Destiny."

Afterwards they repaired to Merrion Square and sat in the park all day, gazing into each other's eyes. It was two months later that Gavin came to Dundalk to see his new girlfriend. Seeing him walk up the driveway in his barrister duds that November evening, Sharon's mother Jean said: "I wouldn't mind him either."

As the kettle was boiled and the tea poured out, Gavin, Sharon and Jean talked about the very real things. Jean asked when they were going to get married. And Sharon was very comfortable with the question. "It all seemed very natural," she says now.

The obvious hurdle "the incredibly long stretches apart", due to Sharon's commitments to Ireland's biggest band since U2 was eventually negotiated but it was, she admits, difficult.

"When you get back after six weeks and you're home for only two days, you have to endeavour to start feeling comfortable again because you learn to be independent for six weeks. Nobody touches you, nobody invades your personal space, and then all of a sudden you are back with this person a couple of times it was almost too much, where we literally had to start the cogs running again.

"Separation leads to insecurity on both parts. I don't think we could have done it without Gavin's own confidence and his security in himself. It takes somebody quite extraordinary to go through this," she says.