Blog

I thought that Ireland acquitted herself quite well with the recent IFTA ceremony (Irish Film and Television Awards). The show was a tad long but the new venue of the Conference Centre was much more suitable for an Awards Show with its theatre style seating. However,...

I know that many of the visitors to my Kitchen Table are writers and so I am delighted bring to your attention a great new writing website which has launched called Writing.ie.Writing.ie has been created by Vanessa O’Loughlin of Inkwell Writers fame. I jest not, nor...

Friday 13th February 1981 was a regular night. I had recently turned 19 and was working for JWT in their head office in Baggot Street. I very likely went for a drink after work – a habit that used to drive my mother mad in the days before mobile phones and microwave...

Yesterday I tweeted something reflecting my frustration with the man who may well be our next Taoiseach, Enda Kenny. His reluctance to engage in the leader’s debate tomorrow night on TV3 with the bulldog of Irish journalism, Vincent Browne leaves me breathless.......

As I sit here at my kitchen table this morning writing these words, the world outside my kitchen window is bright. The sky is washed in a delicate blue and the newly risen sun is spilling it’s weak light at the bottom of the garden.Last Saturday, for the first time in...

On Wednesday last, 19th January, I got up at 5am. I headed straight for the kitchen for a glass of ice cold orange juice to wake me up. As I arrived downstairs I wondered who had left what light on. The kitchen was glowing in the darkness of the pre dawn. I suspected...

Today I attended the funeral of a man I didn’t know well but who was a constant if irregular presence in my life since the mid 70’s.I first saw Paul Ashford when my mother brought me to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The production was meant to take...

This piece was broadcast on Sunday Miscellany, RTE Radio 1 on Sunday 9th of January.The recent snowfall, which caused such travel chaos, also brought with it some unexpected and beautiful gifts, which was very appropriate in the run up to the Festive Season.The...

Today, 6th of January is the feast of the epiphany but here in Ireland it is also Women's Christmas - Nollaig na mBan.To mark the occasion I have written a guest post for the Anti Room Blog which you can read here.Enjoy!

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away, I was about 20 and working for JWT, at that time Ireland’s largest tour operator. It was a great job which I loved very much. Most travel companies at that time were staffed mainly by people in their 20s and early 30s and so the...

Finally, we have arrived at the New Year. I love the fresh feeling and hope that the dawn of a new year brings and this year we also mark a new decade. It is a time for looking forward. It is time to stop wasting time with regrets or worrying about the year that has...

Christmas is a time for memories. I was very lucky to grow up in a reasonably normal home where we had a fairly traditional Christmas. Christmas was a far more modest event back then. Our decorations were of the paper variety and were strung from the four corners of...