​On 1 Nov 2019, just over 240 months ago, I published my first blog post on my bucketlist blog website 80b480.com.  I was still recovering from my 2017 stroke and multiple organ failure and 12 months since I took redundancy from the Exchange.  I had this vague idea that because I had come so close to dying I should make a list of all the things I wanted to do on my bucketlist and start 

When I first started travelling away from home and telling people I was from Carrick-on-Suir, it was often confused in people’s minds with Carrick-on-Shannon or Carrickmacross.  But as soon as I mentioned “my” Carrick’s famous sons, the Clancy Brothers and Sean Kelly no further explanation was needed!  

One of the nice things about living in Dublin is the amount of art installations visible throughout the city.  With numerous statues, sculptures, fountains, murals and other installations, you’re never too far from a piece of art.  Now, that’s not to say that everyone is in agreement as to what’s art….Dubliners have a habit of slagging off their art pieces with descriptive nicknames of their own.  Who remembers the poor “Floozie in the Jacuzzi” (The Anna Livia Fountain now in the 

​My first doggy friend as a little girl was “Tan” Guiry, the dog belonging to our lovely shopkeeper neighbour, Bridgie, three doors up on Mass Road.  At that time everyone kept their front door wide-open and, whenever he wanted, Tan would stroll down the road, cross our threshold step polished red by Peggy and stick his head around our inside door to see if I would play.  

​This week 20 years ago, I was going through trauma.  On 13th of April 2004 – it seems like yesterday - my (then) 75 year-old mother, Peggy, collapsed in the kitchen at home in Carrick while making the tea for my dad, Mickey.  In my lifetime up ‘til then, none of our small family of 4 had ever been in hospital.  Peggy had bad health early on in their marriage with the loss of her first 5 babies, she had had a tubercular gland removed from her neck in the early fifties and had suffered bad headaches when Martin was a baby that was put down to neuritis.  But nothing since I was born.
 
So, it was a huge shock to get the phonecall in Dublin that she had been taken to Waterford Regional Hospital (now WUH) by ambulance with a suspected sub-arachnoid brain haemorrhage (SAH).  The neighbours on the road had been wonderful in picking her up and calling the ambulance.  Peggy had gashed her head off the cooker.  It was the Tuesday after Easter and I had been down visiting home over the weekend.  She hadn’t been feeling 100%; feeling nauseous and headachy so I had picked up flu remedies at the pharmacy. I can’t describe the shock my 89-year-old dad Mickey, my brother Martin and I felt to see a woman that was always so fit and healthy completely knocked out.  

​So, as many of you know, Charlie has a cute little doggie called Benji.  And we are all mad about him.  What you might not know is that before Benji, there was another dog….. called Fido.  And before Elf on The Shelf was a thing, there were the Fido Fotos!  

​For the weekend that was in it, St. Patrick’s weekend, it got me thinking of the Irish diaspora away from home.  I was thinking in particular of my contemporaries who left school in 1983 and emerged into the world looking for jobs at the height of a recession.  Many of my classmates went to the UK, US or Australia and found work in offices, hotels and factories.  Many of the fellas went onto building sites.  In the intervening years many have returned to Ireland but not all.

​My father Mickey left school at the age of 12 but yet was one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met.  During his working life he worked as a general labourer for Sisk (Construction Company), Unicast (Modular Homes) and Ferrersflex (Leather Shoe Insoles) where he was well-known for coming up with clever solutions to complex problems.  But he started his working life as a farm labourer, working for a number of Co. Waterford farming families.

So, last week we got away for an early Valentine’s night away to the “Royal County” of Co. Meath, just down the road from, Dublin.  It was our first night away with Benji, Charlie’s little doggy.  So, we were delighted to find that Bellinter House Hotel near Navan is dog-friendly.

We had been advised that Benji could stay with us in a Courtyard Room.  These rooms are converted stables which are ideal for doggies as they open straight onto the outside.  Benji was also allowed into the reception, bar and study (for dining). 

Getting out of the car, Charlie dropped Benji's lead and the latter took off up across the beautiful grounds like a bat out of hell. Charlie took after him but Benji thought it was a chase and thought

​For over 27 years I have sponsored a number of little children through CCF (now Child Fund of Ireland).  It began in the summer of 1996; I was doing well at work and thought it might be a nice idea to help out a child less fortunate.  I asked to be matched with a little girl if possible as I hoped to be able to help in her education even in a small way of £15 a month. Studies have shown that an 

​In 1978, as we were leaving 6th class in the Presentation Convent, our teacher Sr. Pius allowed us to have a class party in school.  We were heading off to secondary school (high school), some to Greenhill and some to the Tech; so, we didn’t know if we’d be seeing each other ever again.  Twelve-year-old girls being twelve-year-old girls, I remember there being a lot of dramatic good-byes and heartfelt promises to always stay in touch. Forever. (For the most part we have!)

​One of the best things about the Christmas holidays is that you have time to revisit some of your favourite movies.  This year I got to watch the almost 30-year-old film “Forrest Gump” again – one of my all-time favourites.  Yep…it really did come out in 1994!!  When Forrest says that line “My momma always said ‘life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’, no one ever spoke a truer word. The film superbly plays on emotion throughout, finely balancing comedy and tragedy and to me that’s a good description of life in general….comedy and tragedy.  

​One of the truly unusual aspects of being Irish is that weird habit we have of sometimes saying the exact opposite of what we mean.  “I will yeah!” can mean “I absolutely won’t” and “shut up, you. Ya weirdo!” can mean “I love you very, very much”!  The last one in particular could be classed as “slagging”.  Slagging is a term used to describe a kind of harsher form of teasing.  

​In 1987 I passed my final accounting exams and for the next 30 years I worked in finance.  I worked in general accountancy with Jim Gilligan and John Walsh at Gilligan & Co., then in international tax with Arthur Andersen, then in aircraft leasing with Sunrock (the Irish subsidiary of the huge Nissho Iwai Japanese sogo shosha) and then as Head of Finance at the Irish Stock Exchange until 2017.  I made lifelong friendships.  I also had the privilege of working with businesses from the 

​It’s hard to believe that it’s over 11 years ago since I went with Charlie and James to the Aviva Stadium in Dublin to see the one and only Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga for her Born This Way Ball performance.