Picture perfect parenting fools us all

We’re living in the age of augmentation, when lips, teeth, and breasts are only the tip of the ‘fake it til you make it’ iceberg. These days reality is augmented in every Instagram picture; perfection is entirely achievable with enough patience to capture the right moment, plus the right filters. And it’s turning us all into [...]

2019-04-28T20:51:06+00:00 April 28th, 2019|Categories: Opinion, Personal, Print|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

The zombie apocalypse is all around you

I’ve got some news for you. The zombie apocalypse is happening all around you. But until you’re infected, you don’t even know. Watch out for the signs. Irritability. Mismatched socks, or even shoes. Unbrushed hair. Vomit stained clothing. An inability to concentrate. An urge to seek out caffeine and high calorie food substances. And a vague, [...]

2019-03-07T20:36:40+00:00 March 7th, 2019|Categories: Personal, Print|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Two’s company

They say two’s company, and when I was in the throes of SPD with my second pregnancy, that thought went around and around in my head. While some people love being pregnant, I wasn’t one of them, but I knew it would be worth it. As an only child, I consoled myself with the knowledge that [...]

2019-02-27T11:12:08+00:00 February 28th, 2019|Categories: Personal, Print|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

Second time round, pregnancy is a different ball game

A bit like Batman watching Gotham city, I spent much of September observing the movements of boats and planes around Cork Harbour. Batman might be nocturnal, but if they’d given the job to Catwoman she’d have worked it around pregnancy and new motherhood no problem - being awake night and day is part of the deal. [...]

Upcoming events

I love the opportunity to meet people at live events and I am lucky that I am asked to do a really wide range of events in different areas - corporate, environmental, social, political and, well, fun! Over the next couple of months I have some really exciting events coming up and I hope to meet [...]

What a load of rubbish

Waste is big news at the moment. With the introduction of pay-by-weight, minds have been concentrated on keeping rubbish to a minimum in a way that environmental concerns have not to date achieved. (There was a documentary on RTE last night about this too - I didn't get to watch it but it revealed some shocking [...]

2019-01-15T11:55:14+00:00 January 15th, 2019|Categories: Opinion, Personal, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Armistice Day: a personal reflection

A hundred years is a blip in the history of humanity, but for most people, the end of World War One feels like a remote historical event. The decade of centenaries in some ways makes it feel like ancient history - a pity, because we make the mistake of thinking history does not repeat, and progress [...]

2018-12-01T21:55:04+00:00 December 1st, 2018|Categories: Personal, Politics|Tags: , , , |

Trysexuals to Love Island in 20 years

It’s been twenty years since viewers around the world gasped at the audacity of four New York women who weren’t afraid to talk about sex, vibrators and orgasms. They said aloud all the things that magazines like Cosmopolitan had been writing for years. And it made them a worldwide hit, for a market starved of television [...]

The best mental health story I've covered

Earlier in January I got a message on Twitter from somebody I'd met once or twice in a work capacity. He wanted to speak on the show about his experience of mental health. We get a lot of people wanting to talk about their mental health. Many of them are wellness bloggers and celebrities and mental [...]

Living lightly in 2018

I wrote this at the end of December for the Herald and it's been just over three weeks...  How are we all doing on those resolutions? It’s the time of year when, for most of us, everything is full. Our bellies, our bins, our wardrobes and fridges are all heaving with things we needed, things we wanted, [...]