His arms are all pudge until they reach his wrist, where it is as if an elastic band has tightened and pulled the flesh in. And then a spludge out again into a fat palm and five fingers that pad my breast like a cat…

When I was feeling homesick in Berlin I would play an album by Colm Mc Con Iomaire called The Hare’s Corner / Cúinne an Ghiorra. Something about the space and lift and surge of it filled that gap and spoke of home. Our house now…

I wrote this a good few years ago, it was my response to the Ryan Report. I never felt it was quite right and never shared it with anyone. But I'm going to post it here now as it came to mind recently and I…

Here are my thoughts on the upcoming referendum to repeal the 8th amendment of our constitution. For those of you reading this from outside Ireland, this coming Friday May 25th Irish people are being asked to vote on whether or not to remove a clause…

I can’t help but let out a sound. An ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It is impossible not to such is the release. I am like a deflating bouncy castle, no longer needed to buoy and bounce people around. And inside I catapult through an emotional version of life…

I've been thinking some more about time. Thinking back to those first posts I wrote about our 'new life' and the time I would have, the space. And how over the past few weeks I've felt like I used to in the city. No time.…

Trip Part I 06.40am It is still pitch black outside. Oscar and I are going on a road trip. The moon last night was a super blue blood moon and still hangs bright in the sky. The water logged tractor tracks in the field across…

I’ve had a week of feeling irritable and on edge. Put upon I would say. Oscar attached to me in one form or another 23 out of every 24 hours. Kids and husbands with coughs and colds. A constant migraine and an achy back. Clothes…

Whilst having a bath yesterday: ‘Mama, why is there soil in your belly button?’ (My belly button has turned black inside since giving birth) On getting out of the bath yesterday: ‘Mama, why do you wobble all over’ (Three months in bed whilst growing a…

Oscar came home to us on what was his planned delivery date. A day shy of 36 weeks. And a day shy of a month he’d been with us.  It was also the winter solstice - the turn of the year, the step into the…

Hello from Wexford! Oscar was doing well enough to be transferred back to the local hospital and so on the 01 December in a flurry of activity we high-tailed it home. Him in an ambulance with a full compliment of paediatric doctors and nurses, Brian…

Since I went in to hospital on September 3, my husband has: Unpacked a whole house Built us a new kitchen Built himself a new studio Cooked dinners for the week every Sunday Settled Martha in to Montessori Settled Max in to school Been a…

Where to start? At the beginning? The middle? The end? It doesn’t quite matter, as all of them are Oscar. 2.08kg, born at 12.31pm on Friday 24 November 2017. He is tiny and strong and mighty and soft. He has white blonde hair and eyes…

So little one, you’ve decided it is time to come in to the world. You are so very welcome. We’ve both done so well to hang on together in our dance for this long, but it is, it seems, time to say hello. The doctors…

  Today I am 31 weeks and 4 days. I got into the taxi to Wexford General Hospital at 20 weeks and 3 days. So 11 weeks and 1 day I have been a patient. In the last week or so I am gradually realising…

            quickening This is the word that got me thinking about the language of birth. I mostly just love the sound of it. It feels archaic and slightly mystical to me. I imagine it like a spell cast, a magic begun.…

I have been thinking a lot about ghosts and words this week. Well not ghosts per say, but imprints. The scratches and layers of births and babies and lives that the walls of this building have held. palimpsest a manuscript or piece of writing material…

This is the first playlist I have made since my days of recording songs off Longwave Radio Atlantic 252 onto my two-deck Ghettoblaster with Turbo Super Woofer. It is my soundtrack to dozing and knitting and walking the corridors and walking the grounds. I was…

It is the day before Halloween, precisely one year ago: I have sat cross-legged every morning for the past five on the sitting room floor, looking out at the fading Autumn trees. I light a candle in a tall brass-meshed cylinder and I breathe deep…

I love a good list. They are calming, reassuring things. And they work as a diary of sorts. I can look back to June and July 2007 and see my relationship with Brian begin, sandwiched between reminders to buy broccoli and a photoshoot next Thursday.…

‘Ava! Bathroom! Now!’ The midwife disappears from my bedside, where she’s been comforting me while I have a post bleed blubber. Thudder of feet. Call the senior Reg. Urgent! Yes, CTG, BP machine. Get a line in. Fluids. Can someone get some fluids! It’s hard…

So Ireland is all hunkered down waiting for Ophelia. Storm proofing, drain clearing, battery charging. Out my window there is a tropical balminess to the air coupled with fierce gusts that have the pleasant side-effect of de-soup-smelling the ward. But we are at the ready.…

A beautiful celebration of the 6 weeks in hospital leading to the 26 weeks + 4 days so far of keeping this bambino inside... Thank you Jennie for making it - it is an Autumnal work of art x

Someone, we can’t work out who, has explained to Max in great detail how they will be delivering the baby. He has it pretty bang on: the doctors will cut through the layers of Mama’s skin and muscle in her belly with a knife, take…

The shocking warm gush of blood as it blossoms out of you onto the fresh hospital sheets. Press the bell, the bounce of the floor boards, the rush of the midwives. And the world shrinks to a pin prick. You don’t even need to mind…

It is a small world I’m padding around in. Sounds seems important, shape the day. I can tell the toast trolley from the tea trolley from the medication trolley from the blood pressure machine as they are pushed up and down the ward. It is…

I’ve been in hospital a little over three weeks now, and feeling well enough to explore the hospital a little I go on nightly walks up and down the corridors of this old old building, peeking in to the many long blue-curtained wards. Tonight it…

I watched Arrival in the first few days in hospital. How do you communicate with aliens? Sending sounds, symbols, gestures to each other across a void. I think of this as the midwife tries to find the baby’s heartbeat with her little wand. Echo and…

The best made plans of mice and men, eh? As I wrote about our move from Berlin to Ireland, I was well aware the stream-lined dream would be interrupted by the elbows and knees of reality. But I was thinking more along the lines of…

On the other hand, I am scared to death of: The damp Finding no like-minded friends Being bored, not stimulated, isolated My kids eating too many sweets and crap and getting fat Not finding the time to grow the veg, run the business, care for…

17 August 2017 People fall mostly in to two categories when we tell them the news of the move: ‘Wow! So exciting, I’d love to get out of the city and do something new’ ‘You are quite mad to leave this city for a village…

We spent 2 or 3 years stalking property sites. Pouring over plans of Georgian ruins in Seapoint, sites in Skerries, blocks of flats in Bray. We planned business ideas of family farms and retreats in barns on the grounds of 10 acre estates miles from…

Living in Berlin for these 8 years has made me feel more European than island-living ever can. Being on the mainland. The idea that you can hop in your car or catch a train to Czech, to Austria, to Switzerland, or keep on going and…

A work trip to New York for us both; B. for a gig, me touring with a show. Somehow we ended up spending New Year’s Eve on a warm and strange Bahaman island. A bad cold, coupled with some American Horse-Tranquiliser medication meant I kept…