MY HUSBAND’S capacity for crying while watching films has always far exceeded mine, and our children’s for that matter.

MY LATE father had a kind, gentle soul and a heart as soft and yielding as butter.

WHEN I say ‘walkies’ to my old dog, she stretches, resettles her limbs and raises her eyelids for a moment to shoot me a look, which says ‘surely, surely to god you’re joking?’

WE CAN reinvent ourselves for others as we move through our lives, but somehow or other with our siblings, we’re often stuck; in phases we’d rather forget.

WHEN people ask me whether I’ve visited Dogzchen — the Buddhist retreat centre on the tip of the Beara peninsula — the tone of the inquiry is hard to pinpoint.

CHAPTER ONE.

I’VE become a creature of routine; a routine that’s been shaped and formed by living in the same house, with the same people, for a long, long time.

MY CAR is parked, hazards on, up on the kerb in Cork.

THERE was a time when it was difficult to predict the course of post-pudding conversation at a dinner party, regardless of whether the guests had drunk the bones of a distillery or not.

BEING saddled with the slogan “West Brits Out” was not the best start to Martin McGuinness’s presidential push.