He Proposed to Me While Loving Someone Else
He proposed to me on a wet Friday evening in St Stephen’s Green, with the ducks shouting like drunks and the sky the colour of an old saucepan. It was not the…
The Irish Holiday That Ended My Engagement
I came to Dublin with a ring on my finger and left with it wrapped in a receipt from a chemist on Westmoreland Street. It sounds dramatic now, like the sort of…
She Loved My Money More Than Me
I met Aoife on a wet Thursday evening outside Dublin Castle, both of us pretending the rain was softer than it was. She was waiting for a taxi that kept cancelling, and…
The One Person I Should Never Have Fallen For
I knew he was married before I knew the colour of his eyes properly. That should have been enough. It should have put a wall in me, clean and high, the way…
We Shared a Bed but Not a Future
I met him on a wet Thursday outside Whelan’s, both of us standing under the same useless strip of shelter while the rain came down like it had a personal grudge against…
The Morning I Realised I Was the Other Woman
I found out on a wet Tuesday morning in Portobello, with my hair still damp from the shower and a coffee going cold on his kitchen counter. It was one of those…
The Night I Chose Lust Over Love
I used to think betrayal arrived with thunder. A slammed door, a confession, rain lashing against the window like it had been hired for the scene. Mine arrived softly, on a Thursday…
I Couldn’t Compete With His Past
I met him outside the Light House Cinema in Smithfield, both of us pretending we hadn’t been crying at the same film. It was raining in that sideways Dublin way that makes…
Our Love Ended in a Car Park Outside Dublin Airport
We broke up in the short-stay car park outside Dublin Airport, on a wet Tuesday morning, with the boot of my car still open and his suitcase sitting between us like a…
The Man Who Made Me Feel Alive Again
For almost a year after my husband died, I walked through Dublin as if I were looking at it through rain on glass. I went to work, bought milk, answered people politely,…