I Learned to Love Again After Forty
I was forty-three when I decided I was finished with romance. I didn’t announce it dramatically. There was no throwing of rings into the Liffey or tearful speech in a pub. I…
The Holiday We Never Spoke About Again
I met Aoife on a wet Tuesday outside Dublin Castle, both of us pretending we hadn’t just been stood up by the same walking tour. She laughed first, which saved me from…
She Read My Journal After I Left
I left the journal on the windowsill of her flat in Portobello, beside a dying basil plant and a mug with a crack through the handle. I did not leave it there…
Our Best Memories Were Never Photographed
I met Aoife on a wet Tuesday evening outside the George’s Street Arcade, both of us pretending we weren’t waiting for the rain to soften. I was holding a paper bag with…
The Day We Finally Told the Truth
I met Aoife in the smoking area of The Long Hall on a wet Thursday in February, though neither of us smoked. We were both hiding from people we had come with.…
I Loved Someone Who Loved Freedom More
I met him on a wet Thursday outside Whelan’s, when the queue was pressed tight under the awning and everyone was pretending the rain was romantic. He had no umbrella, only a…
She Loved the Version of Me That No Longer Existed
Niamh and I met when I was twenty-three, outside a pub in Temple Bar, both of us pretending we had only stepped out for air. I was all noise then. I wore…
The Last Time I Saw Her She Didn’t Look Back
I met her on a wet Tuesday outside Connolly Station, both of us pretending not to be bothered by the rain. She had a paper bag of chips from somewhere near Amiens…
I Found Happiness After Losing Everything
For years, I thought happiness was a thing you protected by keeping everything in place. The house in Cabra. The same job in a hotel near St Stephen’s Green. Sunday dinner with…
He Never Knew I Loved Him
I met Ciarán on a wet Tuesday in Dublin, the kind of rain that makes everyone look down and hurry. I was twenty-six, working in a bookshop near Trinity, and he came…