I WAS four, so she must have been five when we first became friends one summer. What attracted me to her was the fact that she and her sister owned the two finest tricycles on our road. A gang of...
SO, there we all were, having a jolly old time of it over lunch on a Saturday afternoon. There was me, my teenage daughter, my older sister and two nieces. There we were, nattering away and enjoying ourselves, when the...
SO there we were watching The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford when the definition of the word ‘assassination’...
SHE wanted, she said, to go to Coláiste Fiachra to start a new life. She said that she was “sick...
THE waiting room was busy for that time of the day. It was as busy as a doctor’s surgery on...
A helicopter parent is a parent who pays extremely close attention to a child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at...
And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They’re...
I OFTEN mistake the word ‘wedding’ for ‘funeral’. I don’t mean to do it and it’s a troubling trait to...
SORCHA and Siobhán and the others are going drinking on Paddy’s Day,” she says, squinting up from her phone. Reader,...
“AS A woman in this family, you only have to think of a penis and you’ll get pregnant!” My mother...
THERE are huge advantages to having a clatter of sisters and brothers. Not least the fact that you can go...
Scene: The sofa on Saturday night with my teenage daughter and I watching The Grammy music awards Teenage daughter: My...
“I’M so stressed. My life is so stressful. This is so stressful.” I gathered that my daughter was under some...
ST VALENTINE’S night in any restaurant is different to every other night of the year. An air of expectation hangs...
MY daughter’s singing segued effortlessly from ‘shake it off’ to ‘let it go, let it go’” as she walked up...
“SERIOUSLY? You’re not wearing that, are you? You’re never going to find a man in that get-up,” my youngest sister...
“HOW are you, hon?” “Shi.” “Sorry?” “Shi.” “Come again … what do you mean ‘shi’?” “When I say shi, I...
A NEW year, a new you. 2015 has already got its feet under the table and people are detoxing left,...
“SO, pet, what do you want for Christmas?” I nonchalantly asked my 15-year-old daughter a week before the big day....
HE’S the type of chap that you could bring home to your mammy. He’s kind, funny, talented, loves women and...