THROUGH the window, I can see my second-born, five in August, standing in the class of downpour that would give a monsoon rain-envy. He’s just two weeks out of hospital, hale and hearty once more, but I’m still operating on hyper-neurotic parental mode.

IT WAS welcome and timely to read Dick Warner’s column ‘Celtic nation theory rejected’ (Irish Examiner, September 13) and Mark Gallagher’s feature ’Face up to it: we’re a mongrel nation’ (Irish Examiner, September 27).