Person: Colm O'Regan

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

<p>Fear of Friday the 13th is relatively new. We’ve actually been iffy about Fridays for far longer than 13s. File picture</p>

columnists

Colm O'Regan: Fear of Friday the 13th? Meet 'friggaheptadekaphobia' — fear of Friday the 17th

If you find that your unlucky days have snuck up on you without warning, and you prefer the continental way of life, maybe drop Friday the 13th altogether

Colm O'Regan: Goddesses, Celtic kings, and magical musicians to name your kids after

Colm O'Regan: I have resigned twice in my life... pure bliss

Colm O'Regan: My old copybook — a hymn to a misspent youth

Colm O'Regan: Bikes in the city — some things I've learned

Colm O'Regan: I'm jealous of my eldest daughter, but it's a good jealousy

Colm O'Regan: Twitter's gone sour — where to next?

Mastodon might be the next big thing, but I'll always thank Facebook for the memories

Sat, 10 Dec, 2022

Colm O'Regan: I'm glad my kids don't have to see unhappy animals at the circus

Watching our two kids experience the circus for the first time was just lovely. It was fairly different to the circus in Dripsey I went to years ago

Sat, 22 Oct, 2022

Colm O'Regan: I wouldn't be surprised to see Gene Hackman in the Marina Market

It has the industrial vibes without any of the pretentious codswallop

Sat, 03 Sep, 2022

Colm O'Regan: Not all subredditors are normal sheeple

No matter how tenuous the link, my brain found a connection with maths and Marlo from The Wire

Mon, 22 Aug, 2022

Colm O'Regan: These papers are precious heirloom of memory

From preserving postcards to my grandfather in 1915 to reminiscing over old football magazines, archiving paper documents is a masterclass in nostalgia

Sat, 06 Aug, 2022

Colm O'Regan: I have made my debut as one of 'those' weirdos on the road

The neck of Google Maps sending me up an angry hoor of a road, though

Mon, 01 Aug, 2022

Colm O'Regan: 'Nothing will ever top pushing pigs around the crossroads on beds in Dripsey'

Festivals are back, and as a stand-up comic, I can't wait to tell jokes again for roasting hot humans in a dirty auld tent

Mon, 25 Jul, 2022

Colm O'Regan: I have shingles. It feels like a disease from another era

Colm O'Regan: Using a telescope to go back in time 'freaks my nut out'

The James Webb Space Telescope is grand but what about the mysteriously grainy images from its predecessor, The Hubble

Mon, 18 Jul, 2022

Colm O'Regan: Cycling up St Patrick's Hill in Cork — even Lance Armstrong couldn't do it

I had the feeling that I was going to go backwards and fall off the world

Sat, 04 Jun, 2022

Colm O'Regan: Even after the announcement of a vaccine, things are still meh

Colm O'Regan: Wordle is not what a Dubliner calls the planet

Colm O'Regan gets obsessed with five-letter words

Sun, 16 Jan, 2022

Colm O'Regan: Why you should read Dr Seuss to your children

"Did you ever just catch yourself having an argument with your children on some minor rule that you just made up?"

Sun, 26 Dec, 2021

Colm O'Regan: Mince pie flavoured biscuits? NO!

It’s part of the overwhelming effort to brand EVERYTHING to make it more Christmassy. But you don’t need to make chocolate biscuits ‘festive’ or ‘seasonal’.

Sun, 19 Dec, 2021

Colm O'Regan: A dirty weekend with my wife, cleaning out the attic

For years I thought that having an attic that was up in a heap was just something that was a constant about life, like National Debt or moles.

Mon, 06 Dec, 2021

Colm O'Regan: A frost feels right - a chance to draw a breath, and see it come out

Fruit flies know all our secrets. They’ve been in the fridge, the dishwasher, the toilet. Colm O'Regan is glad they're finally gone.

Sun, 28 Nov, 2021

Colm O'Regan: 'Well lads, I got the electric scooter...' I love listening to the hubbub from backstage

Colm O'Regan: Why I'm linking the Luxembourg match to my central heating

To install it was too expensive and disruptive and might actually damage 100-year-old structures that would need to be rebuilt. A bit like reforming the FAI.

Mon, 22 Nov, 2021

Colm O'Regan: Lockdown fancy, taken by the weeds

We all have our little tricks, to make ourselves feel better when times are glum. I like eating leftovers, testing loose batteries to see once and for all if the fecking things are working or not, and hiding chocolate in the hope I’ll forget I have it.

Sun, 05 Jul, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Are we doing the masks thing or not?

“Cmere? Are we doing the masks thing or NOT, like? What’s going on?”

Sun, 28 Jun, 2020

Colm O'Regan: The best thing about Normal People was Connell's crying

I was ready to not enjoy Normal People . I don’t mean not like it or not think it was good. Just not enjoy it. In the same way I find it hard to enjoy most things made in Ireland. It’s partly jealousy.

Mon, 22 Jun, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Impact of history is a modern-day concern

Brexit told us that the UK history school curriculum seemed to have gaps. That there wasn’t much about the impact of their history on everyone else’s history.

Mon, 15 Jun, 2020

Colm O'Regan: I love a straight bit of road

Before ‘All of This’, we went to Centerparcs. It was either a few months or a decade ago. Time has no meaning since the clocks were closed.

Sun, 31 May, 2020

Colm O'Regan: dancing in the social double-bubble

We are told we are now in the era of the social double-bubble. Experts encourage us to metaphorically put our car keys in a bowl, pick another couple and stick to that choice. It may not be possible for everyone either through reasons of accessibility or just not really liking anyone enough to make them your Significant Other House.

Sun, 24 May, 2020

Colm O'Regan: I’m enjoying turning a waste-frown upside down

It’s time to talk rot. Not rancid rot. Not breaddy rot or chickeny rot. Nice rot. Eggshells and lettuce. Potato skins. The kind of stuff that you make you say Oh instead EEEEEUUU.

Mon, 18 May, 2020

Colm O'Regan: of gratitude in an uncertain time

Gratitude. I’m grateful I found out about it actually. I had always thought of gratitude as a sort of fuzzy nice-to-have.

Sun, 10 May, 2020

Colm O'Regan: putting on the 'game face' - or not

Many mini-genres of social media bulls**t have blossomed like dandelions in this crisis. One of the more rage-inducing is ‘productivity shaming’.

Sun, 03 May, 2020

Colm O'Regan: 'It goes against everything I believe in to isolate my opinions from other people'

We are doing our darnedest to flatten the coronavirus curve. But, elsewhere, there are other curves growing exponentially.

Sun, 26 Apr, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Some things are un-Google-able

“I don’t know and I don’t think I’ll ever know. And that’s fine.” That’s my new mantra for sanity.

Sun, 19 Apr, 2020

Colm O'Regan: old films, old fairytales

Disney Plus? Another subscription? Surely now is not the time. Surely you can get the stuff from the libr...

Sun, 12 Apr, 2020

Colm O'Regan: The lockdown does strange things to folk

We are everyone now. Reluctantly admitting we are as basic as David Gray’s White Ladder being your first CD, writes Colm O'Regan

Sun, 05 Apr, 2020

Colm O'Regan: The Tesco man is here!

I mean, we always cheer when the Tesco Man arrives. He brings Freddo biscuits. But it’s different now, writes Colm O'Regan.

Sun, 22 Mar, 2020

Colm O'Regan: I voted to keep the Seanad on the assumption the Seanad would be reformed. I knew I was kidding myself

A few weeks ago in this column I went to town on how wonderful our democracy is. I wrote lovingly of our Single Transferrable Votes and the accuracy with which they reflect our choices.

Sun, 08 Mar, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Having your prejudices revealed is uncomfortable at the start but once you get over yourself, it’s sort of fun. Exciting. Liberating

It’s International Women’s Day next Sunday and, as a father of daughters ...

Mon, 02 Mar, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Dear Potato People, I will front your campaign

I wrote about this before but I need to write about it again. The World Potato Congress is coming here at a time of potato crisis.

Sun, 23 Feb, 2020

Colm O'Regan: After the voting, some of you will walk around the rest of your old school peering in the windows

We’re nearly there. The final week of the election.

Sun, 02 Feb, 2020

Colm O'Regan: Scientists found a key hormone called drool which counteracts the brain’s ability to do simple sums when ordering a takeaway

We are getting a lot (possibly a sad amount) of joy finishing off leftovers.

Mon, 20 Jan, 2020

Colm O'Regan: After a lifetime of loyal-tea, I’ve started to stray

I haven’t completely made my peace with coffee. I never will.

Sun, 12 Jan, 2020

Colm O'Regan: I have a newfound respect for even the most outlandish of comb overs

It’s an odd new year’s resolution: To stop taking photographs of the back of my head.

Sun, 05 Jan, 2020

Colm O'Regan: It's never too late to start your love affair with ballet

I don’t know how far away from it I was reared, but it was a few miles anyway, and a few decades away as well. The ballet, I mean.

Sun, 29 Dec, 2019

Colm O'Regan: 'It's time to pay tribute to tribute bands'

It’s time to pay tribute to tribute bands: The solution to so many problems.

Sun, 22 Dec, 2019

Colm O'Regan: The famous Capital Exercise book with its cartoons of people playing sport is another great snapshot of a different time

My papers will be available to the State on my death. That’s all my news.

Sun, 08 Dec, 2019

Colm O'Regan: The smell of old books is a scent that defies simile but also one that smells like a colour

As the nights and the curtains draw in, I find myself inexorably drawn to the musty delights of the secondhand bookshop. I might set off for town to buy Cif but then I wake up hours later with a guide from 1983 called ‘How To Get The Most From Your Personal Computing Machine’ which has an entire chapter on rewinding the tape.

Mon, 25 Nov, 2019

Colm O'Regan: I have a few words of my own that I’m waiting to bring into polite conversation