I met Clara on a wet Tuesday in October, the kind of Dublin day that makes everyone look like they are apologising for being outside. We had arranged to meet in Bewley’s…

I met Niamh in a queue outside a small cinema in Rathmines, both of us pretending not to be freezing. She had forgotten her gloves, and I offered her one of mine…

I knew the kiss was a mistake before it happened. That is the awful thing about some mistakes: they announce themselves, quietly and clearly, and you still walk towards them as if…

I met him on a wet Thursday outside the Abbey Theatre, when the rain was coming down sideways and everyone at the bus stop looked personally betrayed by the sky. He offered…

I had my whole life folded into one blue suitcase at Dublin Airport, and still I was mostly thinking about a half-empty carton of milk in the fridge. That’s the strange thing…

The last hug I remember as a man without a child happened in a corridor of the Rotunda Hospital, under lights too bright for three in the morning. My wife, Niamh, was…