007 forced to postpone wedding

Pirece Brosnan and fiancée Keely Shaye-Smith at the premiere of "The World is not Enough"

James Bond star Pierce Brosnan has been forced to postpone his wedding, because his son has not made a full recovery after a recent car crash.

The Irish-born actor had hoped to marry fiancée Keely Shaye-Smith in the 800-year old Ballintubber Abbey, County Mayo on Saturday.

But a spokesman for the Abbey says Brosnan's 16-year-old son Sean is still in hospital, and is not well enough to make the six-hour trip to Ireland.

Sean suffered a broken pelvis and a ruptured spleen when the car he was in plunged 200 feet over an embankment in California last month.

The driver, James Hall, who is Sean's cousin, had swerved to avoid a rock.

Detailed plans on hold

Sean, who is Brosnan's child from his first marriage to the late Cassandra Harris, had appeared to make a good recovery, and plans for the wedding had continued.

A fleet of limousines and a wedding car had been booked to ferry the guests from Dublin to Mayo on Saturday morning.

The ceremony was to have been followed by a reception in the historic surroundings of Ashford Castle.

The spokesman for Ballintubber Abbey added that no new date had been set for the wedding: "There was always going to be a question mark over this," he said.

Ms Shaye-Smith, a former television actress, had helped Brosnan after Cassandra's death in 1991 from ovarian cancer.