Tom Backora changed my life. Not only that, he saved it. Tom was there for me during the darkest of days, showing up with nourishment for my ailing soul when I needed it most. He was a father figure - a positive male role model - and I'll miss him dearly.
A chance viewing of a festive neon art fixture in Rome burned the words, "we rise by lifting others" into my mind and I've thought about what it means ever since in a world that has strayed deeper into the corrosive darkness of cruelty and fear.
Twenty years have now passed since my mother died, aged just 37. When the anniversaries of loved ones come, we can at least see those mists of grief gathering in the distance, albeit we don’t necessarily know how we will deal with them when they pass through us.
At a remembrance and thanksgiving ceremony at the magnificent St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh last Sunday, I experienced something that I had never felt before in my life.
How the northern accent is scary to the people in the south of Ireland and why you should waste no time and start watching The Bear
At this time of year I find that I don’t want the days to brighten and I resent Helios in his chariot for greeting me earlier as he crosses the sky each passing day.Â
I was recently given a photograph. Of the three people in it, only I am still alive.
When I was thinking about a title for this website, events in my life had reminded me of a scene from that glorious 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia.
Nothing is written 