A visit to Dowth Hall, Boyne Valley, Meath
What an unexpected special day. There I was, zooming along the M1, while the soft purr of my two year old snores filled the back seat. We had just been to see a brand new […]
2016
Books I’ve been reading – Mid Summer 2016
I feel like I’m starting to catch up on myself. We’re doing good. Speeding through. Like a book snail! I’m amazed at other readers who devour books in a day. Or a few days. How?! […]
Toddler Swimming Lessons – Olympics here we come
I want to draw references to great Irish swimmers but the only one I know of is Michelle Smith (de Brun) and we all know what happened to her. The next swimmer that springs to […]
How I Write – R.B. Kelly
A native of Belfast, R.B. Kelly has a PhD in Film Theory and published her doctoral thesis, Mark Antony and Popular Culture, in 2014. She is former winner of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair […]
Drogheda – an ode to my home town
Drogheda is a valley town. The River Boyne cuts through it in a great big brown ribbon, the same colour as the trout that swim upstream. Coming down the hill, round the corner from the […]
Keeping your toddler entertained with Netflix
The babysitter’s back. The little black box with the apple on it and the welcoming neon red that is NETFLIX. It all came about because Mammy has been a little bit under the weather lately […]
Diary of a one year old: 23 months. And a surprise.
We’ve reached the end of Diary of a One Year Old. Which is really tough on August as she was getting very good at typing. Up to nearly 40 words a minute she was. It’s […]
How I Write – Dinah Jefferies
Dinah Jefferies was born in Malaysia and moved to England at the age of nine. She is the author of three novels published by Penguin and, after a lifetime of wandering, now lives in Gloucestershire. […]
When you think your book is ready for the world – but it’s not
Goddammit. It had all been going so well on the novel draft. The beta feedback came back. Better than I expected. Three readers. Three thumbs up. A few tweaks here and there, but overall, the […]
Teaching your toddler to swim – what happens when they’re scaredy cats?
I was delighted to be approached by Aura Leisure Centre recently to take part in their Swim Tots classes. I do get approached from time to time to try things and write about them here, […]
Glastonbury on the Bucket List – 10 things you need to know before you go
I survived. I came out the other end, long drops an all. And you know what, the whole thing was grand. No really. Glastonbury attracts a huge amount of fuss. The festival, which has been […]
How I Write – Kate Dempsey
Kate Dempsey is a fiction writer, poet and blogger whose writing had been published and broadcast widely in Ireland and the UK. Her debut poetry collection, The Space Between, was published by Doire Press in […]
Diary of a one year old: 22 months
22 months. And all that’s on our minds is poop. There have been three nappy moments that led us to poo brain. The first was a text from our lovely childminder last week. “Out of […]
How I Write – Justine Delaney Wilson
Justine Delaney Wilson read English at Trinity College Dublin, and then completed a post-grad in Journalism at the DIT in 1997. She has been writing on a freelance basis ever since and also worked in […]