Confessions of a hypochondriac
My neighbour had a surgical procedure and keeps telling me about it. Every time she starts, I shout ‘No! Please…
Why can’t I just buy a boardgame?
The little toy shop stood at the highest point of a steep winding lane of shops all painted different colours,…
Why can no one find the eye hospital?
‘Where’s the eye hospital?’ shouted pretty much everyone standing outside a building signposted eye hospital in Irish. ‘An tAonad Oftailmeolaiochta’…
Is beekeeping left-wing?
‘Zip my head in,’ he said, after climbing into a white jumpsuit with a mesh helmet. It was a beekeeper’s…
An ode to the builder boyfriend
Relationships are about compromise and no wonder so many of us come a cropper in this department when we don’t…
The secret language of horses
‘Horses – beautiful, noble, intelligent creatures,’ said the neighbour I was having tea with. ‘There speaks someone who has never…
Me vs the plumber
My one finished bathroom featured a sink so small I could only wash one hand in it at a time,…
Don’t bother calling the doctor
‘If you are calling about sinusitis, sore throat, earache in children, infected inset bite from the UK not overseas, impetigo,…
Drama on the London Underground
The girl lay slumped against a wall in front of me and someone ran to push the emergency button. I…
We’re serviceless, stateless – and still off grid
You need a personal public service number to get married in Ireland, but in order to get one, you need…
A visit to ye olde Ireland
The £80 million super-yacht with a helicopter on the upper deck sat in the harbour, and we sat outside the…
Have I finally found the most incongruous leftie?
As the disappointingly unmacho South African toddled off after giving us a lecture about hedgehogs, I declared the contest over.…
The trials and tribulations of getting a plumber
‘Please, I’ll do anything,’ I told the plumber. ‘I’ll give you all the money I have if you just come…
No one knows how to sell the European project to the Irish any more
A few days after having Sunday lunch at the hotel where Michael Collins ate his last meal, we found ourselves…
I’m setting up a ‘climate crisis hub’
‘We thought the house would make the most fantastic centre for climate action,’ I heard myself telling the cat rescue…
Why are doctors blaming my birth for my mother’s tumour?
A curious letter has been sent to my mother blaming the tumour in her neck on my birth. An NHS…
I feel for my Jewish friends
‘So what you’re telling me,’ said the priest to the builder boyfriend, ‘is that you were brought up by Irish…
Do charities really deserve my mum’s data?
A letter from Archie Norman, chairman of M&S, popped into my inbox after I complained that I had run over…
My parents and the sorry state of the NHS
Pushing through a crowded hospital corridor behind my father, I heard a voice calling me. Then a nurse grabbed me…
The struggle to book my wedding in Ireland
‘How does anyone young and stupid manage to get married?’ I kept shouting at the builder boyfriend as I pummelled…
Lefties don’t know anything about farming
The artists and hippies are re-wilding their land, which is to say doing nothing at all to it and watching…
Will I ever get my HRT?
The novelty of living in a place where a policeman called Ambrose lives in a house whose door you can…
Are conspiracy theories just conspiracy therapy?
At the Centre for Rare Diseases, the car park was full and lots of people were milling about. I pulled…
