Edel Coffey: Often when we speak in anger, while it may feel good initially, it rarely serves us

I prefer not to commit emotional words to posterity in an email or a text because I know it’s difficult to walk back from the written word

Edel Coffey: 'Words have consequences. It’s a lesson most of us learn the hard way.' Picture: Ray Ryan

“Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.”

So writes Claire Keegan in her novel, Foster. It’s just one line of dialogue but it’s hard not to feel the profound truth of that sentence.