Blog

Every so often I get to interview someone who really fascinates me with their particular stories or expertise.Recently I travelled out to Glasnevin Cemetery to talk with historian and chief tour guide, Shane MacThomais who enthralled me with stories and facts about...

There was a great item on the radio this morning. In the middle of a stressful couple of hours dealing with blocked drains (as in sewage pipes) I retreated to my office and turned on the radio, just in time to hear Ella McSweeney talking about excited cows. Yes –...

I have a love hate relationship with Paddy’s Day for many reasons, not least of which is that I hanker after the simpler way in which we celebrated our national day when I was a child... but that could be just my age. I may be incubating my inner ‘grumpy old woman’....

Some of my best friends are books. Some of the best trips I have ever taken have been within the pages of a good book. Books have a gentle power to raise your spirit, open your mind, and touch your heart. There are few pleasures more sublime that starting a new book...

Do you believe in the power of prayer? Or as it is more trendily called lately – cosmic ordering? Do you think that our thoughts carry power? Can our minds influence our future? At the risk of losing any bit of street cred I may have, I do believe that we are powerful...

News has forever been generally negative. We all know that old cliché that ‘no news is good news’, well it works backwards too. In other words ‘good news is no news’. There are other writers, more learned than I, who have probably written long theses on why this is...

Today, February 1st is the Feast of St Brigid. My daughters went to St Brigids National School it has long been a day of mild celebration in our house being as it means a half day and no homework (only for the youngest now though). The 1st of February is also...

I don’t think I had ever stood in the Upper Castle Yard of Dublin Castle before. As I entered into the hugely atmospheric space last Friday, images from various presidential inaugurations, the Royal Visit and the iconic scene in the movie Michael Collins crowded into...

For the last two weeks or so I have been struggling to come up with a blog post to mark 50th Birthday. I wanted to write something particularly insightful, witty and wise. Something that would make my readers, think, smile and most of all remember. I wanted to come up...

On Friday it will be January 6th – the feast of the Epiphany, or in the Spanish world Dia de Los Reyes marking the visit of the Three Wise Men to the stable in Bethlehem. Mmmm, I will resist making the obvious witty aside about the improbability of not one, not two...

My bad.... things got a bit hectic and exciting immediately before Christmas and I am only now realising that I never picked two winners for my All The Perfumes of Arabia blog post competition.They are Chris Power Smith and Eleanor Fitz.If you guys can email me...

Some of the most bizarre and ridiculous ads on TV at this time of year are the highly stylised mini movies aimed at enticing us to purchase our loved ones expensive perfume or after shave/cologne. Warning – here comes a bit of a rant! I hate perfume. To my sensitive...