On the twenty-fourth of March 1968, an Aer Lingus flight from Cork to London came down at Tuskar Rock, off the Wexford coast of Ireland. Sixty-one people were on board. Sixty-one people died. My father, my dad, was one of them. Most people today don’t even know that Aer Lingus ever crashed. I find that strange. It was a long time ago, mind you, and the country has had a great deal to be getting on with since. I was…
I am an FCMA — a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and it took me a great many years to get there. I’m proud of it. People assume that accounting is the dry part of my life and the rest of this site is the interesting part. They have it slightly wrong. What I love about accounting is the engineering: the systems underneath the numbers, the way information moves through a business, and the fact that a…
Amanda has brought me a steadiness I had never had. I have now lived in this house, here in Derry, longer than I’ve lived anywhere since the ten years in Kilahora, Cork. Everywhere else was months, or a small number of years, one address after another. People ask me whether I like living in Derry, and I always give the same answer: I like living with Amanda. And I do. We have had our rows. We both carry issues up…
Given the choice today, I would far rather live my life as a woman than as a man. Not easy to say, but it fits so much better than fighting it – in a never-ending circular motion! It’s taken me the best part of seventy years to write it down where somebody else outside of close family and friends can read it. Funny that! My trans friend says nothing changed about who she is, only how she expresses herself, so…
On the seventh of September 2026 I sat down and asked for guidance, and twelve things came. I did not choose them and I did not put them in order. They arrived, and when I looked at the list I recognised every single one. They are my twelve guides — my twelve apostles — and they are the shape of everything I am going to write here. Some are books I want to write. Some are wounds I have spent…
From my journal today came three hugely inspiring heroines – thank you for having the courage to be you! It’s your greatest gift to the World! It’s not about being right, or wrong for that matter, – it’s about being you! Col. Bree Fram Apayauq Reitan Alana Watchowski (and her sister) Journal – Petrafied – 20240110 – happiness is an inside job She’d be 100 today! Ma! I miss her but at some level I know I’m blocked – my…
For me, joy is something I tend to take for granted until it’s gone and then I start looking for it by asking questions like what is joy for me? https://vimeo.com/533098850 Joy for me is when I fall into my heart! When I fall in love with Love! And here’s the good news, I always fall in Love, when I have the courage to speak my Truth out loud, especially when it sounds or feels really stupid, in my head….
For years I’ve wanted to be clear and to make my point to Colette and Pat regarding Balfussen. Sometimes a man needs to say what needs to be said and he needs to say it clearly without couching it in subversive or incomprehensible ‘political speak’. This is not a political broadcast but more a narrowcast directly to Colette and Pat themselves. This forum is where my words will best be heard. I would appreciate a response in time. I’m sure…
Sometime during the 20th century, a family psychiatrist by the name of Bert Hellinger, was helping a teenage girl. The story I’ve heard is that to deal with her issues he would invite family members to take part in her therapy sessions, the idea being that in the bosom of her family, the girl would feel safer and more open to her own inquiry, helping her to understand her own workings a little better. On one particular day, one of…
I was awoken again, last night, by a deep crying in my sleep! A strange, unsettling feeling filled the room. In my dream, I had just cleaned the house in readiness for a visitor, but couldn’t see who! The house was mine but I didn’t recognise it. I was standing in a bright but dusty room, looking down the stairs at an open-plan kitchen, with a sitting room off to the left. It reminded me of our house in Howth…