It’s 7 years since we Repealed the 8th, but for me, the big day of celebration is the 26th. It was my first time doing tally at a count centre and the absolute overwhelm when the ballots started tumbling out of the boxes – we could see all the hundreds and thousands of “yes” votes….
Back from the summer holidays, back from Brussels, back to school for the kids, back to college for me & the husband. The return from my annual trip to Brussels heralds the end of the summer and the start of the new school year. I had great plans for the summer – projects to complete,…
I am a great one for not seeing the woods for the trees. I remember feeding my firstborn hour after hour every night, reading about cluster feeding and thinking, “Jesus, I’m so lucky my baby doesn’t cluster feed all night long”. I’m thinking this while cluster feeding, all night long, for months on end. My…
I had great plans for a month to myself between finishing college and the first of the kids finishing up school for the summer. However, as soon as I handed in that last assignment, all the stuff I’ve been putting off all year came home to roost, and I have been running around like a…
I’m not really a poetry person – I could never get into the poetry I studied in school, I found most of it impenetrable and boring. But I’ve loved Pam Ayers and, thanks to her, I’ve always remembered to Look After me Teeth. I also have a favourite Haiku: A Haiku about being an…
The last assignment has been submitted and so, just like that, year one is done. It’s been a tough year, learning how to balance the dramas of family life with my precarious health, full-time college, keeping the house up and running and the family fed, but it’s been great too. I’ve had so much…
The pressure is on! My first year of being a mature student is coming to an end and it’s time to get all those assignments finished and submitted. I’m swinging wildly between “Ah sure its grand, I’ve plenty of time”, to lying awake in bed panicking and scratching my newly erupted stress hives. I’m also…
I do. I care a lot. I care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I’ve been doing that for the past 12 years. And tomorrow, I am being asked to vote in a constitutional referendum where it would seem our government doesn’t care at all. As a campaigner for the rights…
As a trad fiddler, I always had a gig or two on St Patrick’s Day. Some of them have been humdrum, but a couple stand out as WTF. In Dublin one year, I played an afternoon gig in the Parnell Mooney. Mid-tune, a brawl burst through the door. One of the brawlers pickup up a bar…
I had the occasion to visit Skerries this weekend. Its been a long time since I’ve been, so it was lovely to revisit a place that is full of childhood memories. My grandmother’s people were from Skerries and she inherited her Aunt Angie’s cottage in the town so I spent many summers there with my…