I Couldn’t Tell My Family Who I Really Loved
I grew up in a house in Crumlin where everyone knew everyone’s business, except the one thing that mattered most about me. My mother could tell from the sound of my key…
The Love Story That Ended With a DNA Test
I met Ciarán outside Whelan’s on a wet Thursday night, the kind of Dublin rain that doesn’t fall so much as hang in the air and wait for you to walk into…
She Left Me for Someone Twenty Years Older
I used to think the worst thing that could happen in love was betrayal. Then it happened to me, and I learned the worst part was not the betrayal itself, but the…
The Couple Who Stayed Together Only for the Children
For years, if anyone asked why myself and Niall were still together, I would say, “Because we’re a family.” It sounded noble when I said it. It sounded like sacrifice, like maturity,…
My Neighbour Became My Greatest Temptation
I moved into a small flat in Stoneybatter the winter after my engagement ended. I told everyone I wanted quiet, but really I wanted to disappear. The place was above a bakery,…
I Fell in Love With My Housemate
I moved into the house in Rathmines because the rent was the least terrifying number I had seen in months. The room was small enough that I could touch both walls if…
The Kiss That Cost Me Everything
I was twenty-nine, newly engaged, and living in a neat little flat in Rathmines with a man everyone said I was lucky to have. Mark was kind, steady, the sort of man…
The Woman Who Came Back After Twenty Years
I was fifty-one the morning I saw her again, old enough to have made peace with most things and foolish enough to think the heart stays where you put it. I was…
I Didn’t Realise I Was the Other Man
I met her on a wet Thursday evening in Dublin, the kind of evening where the buses sigh at every stop and everyone looks personally betrayed by the rain. I had ducked…
The Night We Decided Not to Cheat
It happened on a wet Thursday in November, the kind of rain that makes Dublin shine and look disappointed in you. I was in Whelan’s on Wexford Street with people from work,…