The Oireachtas Golf Society had existed for fifty years - a friendly club tying together past and present members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Ireland's parliament. Its captain in 2020 was the Galway-West independent TD Noel Grealish; its president was former Fianna Fáil senator and former Leader of the Seanad, Donie Cassidy. The event was a 50th-anniversary celebration that doubled as a tribute to the late Fianna Fáil MEP Mark Killilea Jnr, who had died in 2018. The two-day program included rounds of golf at Connemara Golf Links in Ballyconneely - won by Niall Blaney and Gerry Brady - and the gala dinner on the evening of 19 August. The hotel had divided the dining room into two sections of 45 and 36 attendees with a removable partition. The organizers thought they were within the rules. They had also been working with new rules announced the day before.

On 20 August the Irish Examiner published the guest list. Public anger was immediate and immense. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was described as furious. Sitting around that table the previous evening had been Dara Calleary - the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil. Calleary had been a minister for less than two months: his predecessor Barry Cowen had been sacked on 14 July over a drink-driving controversy. By the evening of 21 August, Calleary had resigned. He told MidWest Radio: 'I made a big mistake. I shouldn't have gone to the function. I didn't want to let people down and I take responsibility for that mistake.' The Leas-Chathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann, Jerry Buttimer, resigned the same day. Six senators lost the party whip as punishment. The international press - The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, Politico, Le Parisien, Frankfurter Allgemeine - all carried the story.

The Phil Hogan timeline drew its own attention. Hogan was the European Commissioner for Trade - one of the most powerful Irish people in Brussels. He had been in Ireland since 31 July and had attended the gala dinner in Clifden on 19 August. On 22 August, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris used discretionary powers to inform the government that Hogan had been stopped by the Gardaí in County Kildare en route to Clifden, using a mobile phone while driving - a fixed-penalty offence. Worse, Kildare was at the time under a local lockdown, meaning Hogan was permitted into the county for essential work but not out of it for non-essential purposes. His timeline kept shifting as journalists found inconsistencies. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen requested a detailed report. Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar publicly suggested Hogan should reconsider his position. On 26 August, Hogan resigned as EU Trade Commissioner. The previous Taoiseach Enda Kenny had been invited - he played the golf but refused the dinner, telling others he thought it was 'a bad idea' that would 'send out the wrong signal to the general public.'

In February 2021 the Director of Public Prosecutions announced criminal charges against four organizers - Noel Grealish, Donie Cassidy, and the Sweeney brothers James and John of the Station House Hotel. The trial began on 6 January 2022 in Galway. Over fifty witnesses were due to give evidence. On 3 February, District Court Judge Mary Fahy dismissed all charges. The court found that the dinner had been organized within the rules and with due care to public health: 'They were all responsible people who would not have gone to a dinner unless they felt comfortable and unless the organisers had not put in place all that was required to make it safe.' Grealish said he was 'delighted with the outcome.' Cassidy, emotional leaving the court, said he had 'always been a lawmaker and never a law-breaker.' The legal verdict was acquittal. The political verdict had already been delivered. A cabinet minister, a deputy parliamentary leader, an EU Commissioner, and six senators had all paid prices that no court could refund. In November 2020 Chief Justice Frank Clarke had written to Supreme Court Justice Séamus Woulfe - another dinner attendee - to say it was his opinion that Woulfe should resign to avoid continuing serious damage to the judiciary. Ireland kept its memory of the night the rules tightened and the dinner went ahead anyway.