I didn’t realise that there was something wrong with me until I went to school. It was the summer of 1955. I was not yet five years old and my...

Old  bookshops are places one goes to replenish the soul. It’s the smell of them old books that returns me to a time when they were more appreciated than they...

I had a feeling I could be right about this, and to prove it, I went out that rainy evening, at dusk, crossed the bridge, and went to look for...

I was clearing out the shed after ordering a large skip that stood in the drive. I picked up the broken chair wondering how we had held onto it for...

I remember climbing the pillar as a young girl, my friend Pauline and I would take ourselves off to town when she needed new clothes, I just tagged along. Her...

Neighbour Sacramental ewers, blessed salts cleansed and sanctified, visible forms of invisible grace. Relics in satin boxes, flowers, incense. Mary surrounded by guardian angels. Imagination run wild. Mystical monuments in...

Reservoirs of psychic energy released, our soul’s spiritual longings burst open a riotous carnival of colour, chaos and song. Brightly lit Mondrian floor blue, yellow, green, orange, red, turns your...

It was bad enough on that one particular morning ten years ago when I realised I was fifty. Of course I could understand that it was just a number. And...

Martin Casey could not spell the word ‘remember’ no matter how hard he tried. ‘Rem-em-em-em, he’d stutter. ‘No, no no,’ roared O’Leary, ‘spell it again.’ ‘Re… m… m… em…’ ‘Oh...

What is it? What is this damn fetish we have in Ireland for floury potatoes? What is it that compels our people to drive all the moisture from the humble...