The Secret Relationship Hidden From an Entire Irish Village
I grew up in a village in west Clare where people knew the sound of your car before they saw the colour of it. If you bought a new coat, someone would…
He Loved Me Until I Said Yes
For almost a year, I thought I was being loved in the most patient way a person could be loved. He would wait outside my office near Grand Canal Dock with two…
The Love I Never Had Hurt More Than the Love I Lost
I used to think heartbreak had to come with a clear ending. A suitcase by the door, a final argument, a text that said we were better off apart. When my three-year…
The Night We Almost Destroyed Our Marriages
I used to think marriages ended in dramatic ways, with slammed doors, suitcases on beds, rings left beside sinks. I didn’t know they could almost end quietly, at 1.40am on a wet…
I Fell for My Boss During a Business Trip to Belfast
I used to think falling in love at work was something that happened to people with messy calendars and no sense of self-preservation. I was thirty-two, living in a small flat near…
The Stranger I Met on the Luas Became My Biggest Addiction
I met him on the Green Line Luas on a wet Tuesday evening, the kind of Dublin rain that doesn’t fall so much as hang around you. I was standing near the…
We Shared a Hotel Room but Never Crossed the Line
I still think about that night in Dublin whenever someone says love is only proven by what you do. Sometimes love is proven by what you refuse to do.It happened six years…
My Ex Invited Me to Her Wedding in Cork
The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, which felt rude in its ordinariness. I was eating toast over the sink in my flat in Rathmines, late for work and pretending not to be,…
She Left Ireland Without Telling Me She Was Pregnant
I met her outside Grogan’s on a wet Friday evening, the kind of Dublin rain that doesn’t fall so much as hang in the air and quietly ruin your hair. I was…
The Girl I Met at Electric Picnic, and the Life I Came Home To
I met her on the Saturday evening at Electric Picnic, in that strange golden hour when the fields look softer than they really are and everyone seems briefly convinced that life can…