Every woman has a some kind of relationship with shoes. For many I think it’s a kind of love affair. But for me shoes are full of complicated contradictions. Yes, it’s that serious. I’m not a lover of shoes, shoe shops or hairdressers for that matter. But that’s another story. When I was a kid, the back to school ritual included getting a new . . .
What Monica Lewinsky can teach us
We’ve all been there. Young, free, infatuated. If you remember your own youth you will probably be glad that there was nobody recording your adventures on a mobile phone. Or maybe like so many others these days you have already had your private moments shared on the internet for everyone to gloat over? I’ve had to learn all this new . . .
A secret
Today I am letting you into a secret. I want to take a break from the internet. I have no idea how to do it, but it feels like a good idea. I've been blogging weekly for 6 years now. It's a fantastic discipline and has taught me a lot about just getting on and doing it. I never thought it would be possible to get over the shyness, the . . .
10% of Irish people have no religion
According to the census results only 10% of people in Ireland have “No religion”. No religion doesn’t really cover the multitude and variety of individuals behind that new statistic. I know because I am one of them. I have a hunch that the real figure is probably a lot more than 10%. Do you think that everyone, in every home, was consulted about . . .
Memory making through photography
I don't necessarily think of myself as an older person. But there you are, I am an older person. So when I was asked by Garter Lane Arts Centre to facilitate a photography workshop for older people as part of the Bealtaine Festival, I was curious. (The Bealtaine Festival is about celebrating the arts as we get . . .
Unfurling in their own time
I hear myself saying- I don't know what I'm doing. And there's a freedom in that. I say it, often in the most inappropriate places, only to discover that I'm talking to myself. This phrase soothes me, puts me back on the ground, drags up my humility. Humility which is sometimes in the clutches of . . .
Be your own sanctuary
"To be a contemplative is to learn to trust deep time and to learn how to rest there and not be wrapped up in chronological time. Because what you’ve learned, especially by my age, is that all of it passes away. The things that you’re so impassioned about when you’re 22 or 42 don’t even mean anything anymore, and yet, you got so . . .
Savouring every moment
I started a one year sabbatical from my job of over 20 years in January this year. For the first couple of months I struggled with a bout of shingles and every other damn thing you could imagine. I even managed to fall flat on my face twice. For the first time since I was 10, I have two scabby knees and could enter any bruise comparison contest . . .
The good life in rural Ireland
"I see myself on the underworld side of that water, the darkness coming in fast, saying all the names I know for a lost land:" From The Lost Land by Eavan Boland While we all complain about our pet hates, those of us living in Ireland have an incredibly good life. We are lucky or blessed . . .
Interacting with art at the Tate
I spent two days absorbing the art at Tate Modern and Tate Britain the other week. The retrospective of David Hockney was a treat. I don't think I had ever seen an exhibition of his before. But those pictures were in all the books we read during my art college years. It was like re-visiting very old friends. On the south terrace of . . .
