Granny Murphy was supposed to be my guest at the Cork Person of the Year awards only two weeks ago. She had her hair done especially, the good outfit picked out.

It was my Granny Murphy’s birthday recently. She probably wouldn’t be too pleased with me if I revealed her exact age in De Paper but let’s just say that it was a considerable milestone, one that many of us would be delighted to reach, writes Louise O’Neill. 

In a study released in 2013, scientists found that when they applied an electric shock to mice as they were exposed to the smell of cherry blossoms, the mice were, in time, trained to fear that scent. 

Christmas marks the passage of time, the end of every year, and Louise O’Neill feels no differently about the season. Here she talks about the changes occurring as the Christmases go by.

Memory is a strange thing. It is unreliable, malleable, hauntingly transient, and yet we allow it to shape our present lives.