According to my six-year-old boy, I am “like a rainbow”. His teacher brought me into his classroom the other day to see his little essay, proudly hung on the wall, where he was asked to use similes to describe a friend. I was touched that he chose me as that friend, and I was even more…
One of the things I like about England is the 50p pieces. There is a pleasant continuity to using coins with shapes and sizes similar to those in circulation when I was a boy growing up in Cork. There is something reassuring about such small things in life remaining constant, and in seeing my kids stash…
We are deep in winter now. Yet there is something brightening the grey. The New Year still shines fresh and full of possibility. The Earth is, by welcome degrees, tipping us back towards the sun – an astronomical fact quietly celebrated by the crocuses and snowdrops that emerge from the frosty ground. It is wonderfully…
We are deep in winter now. Yet there is something brightening the grey. The New Year still shines fresh and full of possibility. The Earth is, by welcome degrees, tipping us back towards the sun – an astronomical fact quietly celebrated by the crocuses and snowdrops that emerge from the frosty ground. It is wonderfully…
The start of 2016 sees our family engaged in an Irish tradition: emigrating. Work has brought our family to live in England for a spell. The past few months have been a flurry of paperwork, transit vans, goodbyes and house-hunting. We now find ourselves in an idyllic rural corner of England that often feels like…
The kids wanted to know what Christmas was like in “the olden days”, that is, when I was a boy. “Come on!” I said indignantly, “the 1980s is not the olden days!” But they insisted that it was. Time is relative, I suppose. The end of the 1980s happened over 24 years ago – over…
Emilia’s big blue eyes shone above her joyful toothy grin as she trundled forward clumsily – walking, for the very first time. Her hands were held up in an “I surrender” posture as she merrily stumbled back and forth between her mother and I, to shrieks of delight and applause from her older siblings. She…
It is a tender moment when you are called to school to pick up a poorly child. The call came from reception, with tales of a pallid, weak boy, almost asleep with his head on his desk. It fell to me to ride to the rescue. Driving to school, late autumn leaves clung to the…
Seán said it was going to be “the biggest adventure he had ever been on ever in the whole world”. We were in sudden need of a second car and Seán’s granddad kindly offered us an old Land Rover he had. The only catch, if there can be a catch to such a generous offer,…
I’m encouraging my mother-in-law to take up motorcycling. A cynic might suspect my motives, but to be honest, I never quite got mother-in-law jokes; I’m very fond of mine, an Italian mother-in-law being the very best variety, I believe. Although well-acquainted with her zest for life, I have to say, even I was surprised by…