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An Oscar Winner No Less
Having recently cleared out our family home I am now the proud custodian of some of our family photos. There is a very battered fake leather album into which my mother stuck the ‘good photos’, each one held in place by black corner sticky hinge things. The photos that...
SERENDIPITIOUS SUMMER
My book, Wise Up (Wisdom, Power, and the Older Woman) published last June and just over a month later I was in my beloved Ahakista on the Sheep’s Head Peninsual in West Cork. Ahakista is not really a village, but it does have two great pubs, one of which is the Tin...
WISE UP…..
New book. It's been so long since I posted on my blog, I have almost forgotten how to do it. But I wanted to let you know that I have written a book. Covid lockdowns swept away all my excuses and I finally managed to write more than 10,000 words - something I could...
The Hopefulness of Geese
This is the longer text of my script which was broadcast on RTE Radio One, Sunday Miscellany on 14 November 2021. A link to the programme is here https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22029731/ Photo by Jan Rod It’s in November I hear them first. It begins as an echo...
Be The Change
Written for Sunday Miscellany 50th anniversary Mia my youngest daughter is a music obsessed, art mad, 18-year-old hippie. Her bedroom looks like something that the 1970s left behind, with the dark purple walls adorned with batik hangings, photos of her favourite...
CYCLING THE WESTERN GREENWAY
A guide for ole wans! Greenways are on the increase in Ireland. They are combined walking and cycling routes which often follow a former railway line or sometimes canal or even a river. What all these have in common is that they are reasonably flat. Not completely...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
THE LAST EPISODE..... with comedian Steve Cummins Steve Cummins is a comedian, host of the Laughter Lounge and one half of the very successful Zoom Party. This episode has no recommendations... it's all about having a laugh. From nipples to donkeys to the slow...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Sinead Moriarty Sinead Moriarty is a best selling author, newspaper columnist and Eason's book ambassador. https://youtu.be/MpKfNWMHLHI Sinead's recommended reads are: Snowflake by Louise Nealon Waiting for the Miracle by Anna McPartlin (avail to pre order now)....
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Joanna Fortune Joanna Fortune is a highly experienced child psychotherapist with her own practice. She is a familiar voice on radio, as the parenting expert on the Moncrieff Show on Newstalk FM. She is the author of the 15 Minute Parenting guides and also has her...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Katherine Lynch Katherine Lynch is probably best known for her hilarious and outrageous shows on RTE - Wagons Den, Wonder Women and Single ladies and the legion of mad characters she brought to life. But Katherine is also a singer, a poet, a documentary maker and...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Dr Lollie Mancey Dr Lollie Mancey is a cultural anthropologist and academic who teaches innovation at UCD. She is also an expert in Rites of Passage with a passion for story telling and learning. https://youtu.be/eq__9x4q13A Lollie's book recommendations were The...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Pat Dawson, CEO Irish Travel Agents Association Pat Dawson is a well known voice on radio in his position as CEO of the ITAA (Irish Travel Agents Association) and this timely chat includes his insight into how the Irish travel business has been decimated by the...
Sunday Miscellany
Be The Change
Written for Sunday Miscellany 50th anniversary Mia my youngest daughter is a music obsessed, art mad, 18-year-old hippie. Her bedroom looks like something that the 1970s left behind, with the dark purple walls adorned with batik hangings, photos of her favourite...
An Unexpected Gift
(Broadcast on Sunday Miscellany RTE RADIO 1 January 2011) The recent December snowfall, which caused such travel chaos, also brought with it some unexpected and beautiful gifts, which was very appropriate in the run up to Christmas. The uncommon arrival of such deep...
‘UNTIL THE NEXT TIME
I have been getting a huge reaction to my piece 'Until The Next Time' which was broadcast on Sunday Miscellany on RTE Radio 1 last Sunday 21st April.You can listen to the podcast of the programme by clicking the link here. My piece is about 31 minutes in.Here is the...
My Halloween Musings on Sunday Miscellany
Just a little note to let y'all know that I will be one of the featured writers on Sunday Miscellany this Sunday, 31st October when I shall be, appropriately enough, musing about Halloween. Regular readers will know that this is my absolute favourite time of year!So,...
SUNDAY MISCELLANY – FINALLY
There are many of us, writing away in our own homes, most days of the week because that is what we love to do. We write stories, start (and some of us finish) novels and muse about life in general. We write because it is what we do. But many of us, your truly...
Animals
The Hopefulness of Geese
This is the longer text of my script which was broadcast on RTE Radio One, Sunday Miscellany on 14 November 2021. A link to the programme is here https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22029731/ Photo by Jan Rod It’s in November I hear them first. It begins as an echo...
Cats and how they can break your heart
Ernest Hemingway said that “a cat has absolute emotional honesty; human beings, for one reason or another may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” And as someone who has lived with cats all her life, I think our Ernest is right. But I never really thought that...
Exams, Kittens and Epic Ireland
I recently found myself getting broody. Not for another baby – oh no – but for a little ball of madness that is most kittens. Around the same time the stress levels in the house were noticeably heightened due to Junior Cert and fifth year house exams. There was a...
The reason why kittens are so cute… a post for Mother’s Day!
I have little time for Mother’s Day, probably thanks to my anarchistic tendencies. If everyone is going one way, I will generally prefer to go the other. I also hate being told what to do, hence I couldn’t handle being in a book club. So when the world tells me...
HE WAS SOME CAT….
16 years is a long time to live with someone regardless of how many legs they have. In our house we live with as many four leggeds as with two leggeds and the bonds of love are strong. This week our oldest four legged – Simba died. He had been in decline for months...
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE CAT INDEED.
So after lots of hoopla and advance PR last night I sat down with my cuppa and bun, ready to be amazed and educated about ‘The Secret Life Of The Cat’ – a Horizon special on BBC2. Regular readers will know that while I don’t consider that I am (yet) in the Crazy Cat...
KITTY. 2003 – 2013
Yesterday we lost our beautiful little 'kitty'. She was ten years old and until Monday she had been very well. Kitty was a wonderful cat - with a coat as soft as feathers and a girly meow which sounded more like a squeak. She was part of our family and we are all...
Tiger 1996 – 2012.
I remember very well the day in winter of 1996 when I went to collect you. You were lounged nonchalantly on a bed in a small townhouse in Bray where the owner had christened you Florence. You were about 3 months old.I took you home to our little rented house in...
YOU CAN’T BEAT THE LOVE OF AN ANIMAL
A client of my husband’s arrived at our house recently to collect some photographs. It was a Saturday morning and she was accompanied by her gorgeous daughter who was about 2 years old. Arriving at our door can be a bit hectic as not only will you be greeted by one...
A LESSON IN MOTHERING – FROM A CAT!
Consider this post a third instalment in our ‘Adventures in Kitty Fostering’ series. After the stories of Hector and Maggie, we took a break in order to facilitate a smooth transition back into school routine etc. But once October arrived, I knew in my heart that it...
MAGGIE
The August Bank Holiday weekend is the last hurrah of summer – next stop Halloween and sure then it’s Christmas. According to the Celtic calendar we are now in autumn and the August Bank Holiday roughly coincides with the ancient festival of Lughnasa, which marked the...
HECTOR
What will we call him?The girls chirruped happily in the back of the car. “Meooowww” said the little ginger bundle in the cat carrier. “Dewey”? “Ginger”? Negotiating the slip road onto the motorway, I indicated into the traffic. “ His name is Hector” I announced "He...
Political
A presidential election will provide winter entertainment, but that’s all.
The media loves an election, for obvious reasons. It provides cheap entertainment, throws up some great rows, and occasionally provides the great unseating of a candidate who looked like a shoe-in. Normally I too would enjoy the prospect of an election for all those...
Urgent action by government needed after Pope’s visit.
The summer of 1979 will forever live in my memory as that special gap summer that occurs after you leave school and before you embark on the next phase – be it college or work. It was a summer of delicious discovery, of excitement and of freedom. I was 17 and by...
Imagine if we had no government?
It is very depressing to watch and to feel the surge of hope that came with the General Election die slowly. We are now coming to terms with the fact that those we voted back into Dail Eireann seem to be completely baffled by the result of said election. Meanwhile...
HOMELESSNESS HAS TO BE THE ELECTION ISSUE
The fastest growing economy in Europe. New jobs being created every week. Cranes once again stalking the Dublin skyline. Even Dun Laoghaire, poster town of the recession, has an air of recovery about it with new shops opening regularly. Although many of us will be...
Modern Irish History
Kidnap on the Blackwater
26th June 1920 One hundred years ago, on the 26th of June 1920, one of the most extraordinary events of the War of Independence began to unfold on the banks of the beautiful River Blackwater just outside the north Cork town of Fermoy. Fermoy was a major garrison town...
Pandemic & Covid
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
THE LAST EPISODE..... with comedian Steve Cummins Steve Cummins is a comedian, host of the Laughter Lounge and one half of the very successful Zoom Party. This episode has no recommendations... it's all about having a laugh. From nipples to donkeys to the slow...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Sinead Moriarty Sinead Moriarty is a best selling author, newspaper columnist and Eason's book ambassador. https://youtu.be/MpKfNWMHLHI Sinead's recommended reads are: Snowflake by Louise Nealon Waiting for the Miracle by Anna McPartlin (avail to pre order now)....
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Joanna Fortune Joanna Fortune is a highly experienced child psychotherapist with her own practice. She is a familiar voice on radio, as the parenting expert on the Moncrieff Show on Newstalk FM. She is the author of the 15 Minute Parenting guides and also has her...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Katherine Lynch Katherine Lynch is probably best known for her hilarious and outrageous shows on RTE - Wagons Den, Wonder Women and Single ladies and the legion of mad characters she brought to life. But Katherine is also a singer, a poet, a documentary maker and...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Dr Lollie Mancey Dr Lollie Mancey is a cultural anthropologist and academic who teaches innovation at UCD. She is also an expert in Rites of Passage with a passion for story telling and learning. https://youtu.be/eq__9x4q13A Lollie's book recommendations were The...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Pat Dawson, CEO Irish Travel Agents Association Pat Dawson is a well known voice on radio in his position as CEO of the ITAA (Irish Travel Agents Association) and this timely chat includes his insight into how the Irish travel business has been decimated by the...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With June Shannon June Shannon is a medical / health journalist who has helped many of us stay sane over the last year with her live tweets of the briefings by NPHET and Government. She has distilled down figures and words into easily understandable tweets and has...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Dil Wickremsinghe Dil is a mental health professional, an activist, a journalist and former broadcaster who presented Global Village on Newstalk. Along with her partner, Anne Marie Toole they founded and run Insight Matters, a counselling, psychotherapy and...
How to Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Rory O'Neill aka Panti Bliss Rory O'Neill is an entertainer, a drag queen, a publican and an activist and I was delighted to welcome him to the webcast. Our conversation meandered around the decimation of the arts and live entertainment, living in a very quiet...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Samantha Kelly aka The Tweeting Goddess Samantha Kelly is a social media specialist, a twitter expert, a business coach and the founder of the Women's Inspire Network which supports female entrepreneurs. She is currently working on the networks event for...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
With Tom Clonan Dr Tom Clonan is a columnist, broadcaster, security analyst, feminist and advocate for disabilty and a retired Army Captain. A calm and reasoned commentator, his take on where we are in this pandemic might just cheer you up. He also has some cracking...
How To Stay Sane in a Pandemic
Episode 9 with MARY COUGHLAN Mary Coughlan is one of Ireland's most respected singers with a worldwide reputation. She joined me and talked about her journey to heal and to find confidence through connection with the land and being a medicine woman. Mary is the...