I was twelve the first time Garda Declan Byrne came to our flat in Stoneybatter. It was the winter after my father died, the kind of Dublin winter that got into the…

When my daughter was seven, she spent five nights in CHI at Temple Street with a chest infection that frightened the life out of me. I remember the small sounds more than…

The first Christmas after my mother died, I planned to spend the day with the curtains closed in my flat near Phibsborough, eating toast and pretending the phone had broken. My sister…

I first went to the shelter in Rathfarnham on a wet Tuesday, the kind of Dublin day that makes even the trees look tired. I had no plan to adopt. I told…

I used to think a field was only a field if it was working for you. Grass for cattle, hay for winter, a ditch to keep the wind off, a gate to…

Three months before our wedding, myself and Ciarán were standing in Arnotts arguing quietly over a toaster. Not a dramatic argument, just that tired kind couples have when they are pretending to…

I was seventeen the winter I learned that a library could feel warmer than a bedroom. I had no bedroom then, only a rucksack, a school jumper I washed in sinks, and…

When my mother came home from the Mater after her stroke, the first thing we learned was that a house can love you for forty years and still become a stranger overnight.…