There are worse things to fear than Friday the 13thHilary Fannin: I’m shortsighted and greying but not superstitious. Sorry, friggatriskaidekaphobicsFri Apr 13 2018 - 06:00
Meghan Markle has delicate ankles. I fear for them on the Temple Bar cobblesThough I covet her well-turned pins – I worry they could prove a liability on any proposed 'mini-moon' in DublinFri Apr 06 2018 - 06:00
‘I saw one homeless man after another, hunched in doorways, shrouded in blankets’Hilary Fannin: On that wet, freezing night in Canterbury, youthful hordes swirled past the silent, watchful men, blowing on their cold, stiff fingersFri Mar 30 2018 - 06:00
Reflections on a night out with ‘the fam’ – the friends who might as well be familyHilary Fannin: We were close, we were broke. Life was full of uncertainty. We relied on each other, helped each other out, sharing money and hopes and chickensFri Mar 23 2018 - 06:00
17 things to do on St Patrick’s Day that don’t involve paradesHilary Fannin: Stay in bed, phone your mother, listen to an album with your eyes closedFri Mar 16 2018 - 14:05
Never mind the planet, what about Cheryl and Liam?Hilary Fannin: Celebrity unions are collapsing day after Siberian-skied dayFri Mar 09 2018 - 06:00
Irish women never needed Lent – they had given up enough alreadyHilary Fannin: I wondered where everyone else was, the other women, the scientists and artists, the engineers and physicists, the dancers and lovers and prophetsFri Mar 02 2018 - 06:00
Lying on cold bathroom tiles? Welcome to the menopauseHilary Fannin: She’s tumbled in turmeric root, flung herself into fish oil and knitted herself a flattering pair of flax-seed bed-socksFri Feb 23 2018 - 06:00
‘Cats and cars. Kids and chats. Winter coats, wooden coffins. Boom, it’s all over’Hilary Fannin: Where did the time go? What happened to those decades? Siphoned away. Quietly eroded. Pushed silently out to seaFri Feb 16 2018 - 06:00
‘For many women in Ireland, young and old, retaliation was not an option’Hilary Fannin: I found Germaine Greer's contribution to the #MeToo debate unpalatable - I don’t remember many women slapping men downFri Feb 09 2018 - 06:00
I was weak at everything in school - I know because the nuns told meHilary Fanning: At school, I was ‘weak’ at everything but unexpectedly here I am a mature student at Trinity CollegeFri Feb 02 2018 - 06:00
Going to sleep in the dark and getting up in the dark is not my idea of funHilary Fannin: I suspect that it’s going to take more than a few cacti to salvage my home from wintery ennuiFri Jan 26 2018 - 06:00
Do we just wake up one morning wearing Fit-Flops and sensible knickers?Hilary Fannin: Gomera is not party-shoe terrain – just as well, given my increasingly practical wardrobeFri Jan 19 2018 - 06:00
Living the Gwyneth Paltrow way, but I’ve changed most of the rulesHilary Fannin: Still, maybe Paltrow can help me rustle up a few new year resolutionsFri Jan 12 2018 - 05:00
My body is a sagging bicycle shed, graffitied over with years of toxic neglectHilary Fannin: I can’t put off thinking about resolutions much longerFri Jan 05 2018 - 06:00
Memory is an unreliable friend, a drunk in a barHilary Fannin: 2017 was a tough year for me. Here’s what I think I remember of itFri Dec 29 2017 - 06:00
A Christmas story by Joseph O’Connor, Lisa McInerney, John Boyne, Emer McLysaght, Maeve Higgins and more...Ten writers play a game of pass the baton to create a Christmas mystery about an elf from Elphin and a magic crystalSat Dec 23 2017 - 06:00
Disorganised Christmas? Like Keano said, fail to prepare, prepare to failHilary Fannin: And don’t come crying to me over your spilt cinnamon milkFri Dec 22 2017 - 07:20
I find Prince Harry marginally less odious than the rest of his royal tribeHilary Fannin: And it’s probably a good time to wish him and Meghan the very best of IrishFri Dec 15 2017 - 07:16
All the religious claptrap drummed into us as we sat in schoolHilary Fannin: Today’s the day we celebrate how the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sinFri Dec 08 2017 - 06:00
The shock of waking to another December – where did 2017 go?Hilary Fannin: this year promises to be as predictable as a bog-standard Yule logFri Dec 01 2017 - 06:00
When your final parent dies, you need to recalibrateHilary Fannin: What happens the idea of home when, even though you’ve lived half your lifetime in another city, in another country?Fri Nov 24 2017 - 06:00
I thought I'd get on in theatre by ‘keeping my mouth shut’Hilary Fannin: I recognise the reality described by young women who tried to navigate the theatre worldFri Nov 17 2017 - 06:00
Victoria Beckham’s thin because she hardly eats, and other shocking factsHilary Fannin: You never know what you’ll learn at the beautician’sFri Nov 10 2017 - 06:00
Swedish death cleaning: Put your life in order so loved ones needn’tHilary Fannin: Here it’s beaten into us to worry about a clean soul, not a sock drawerFri Nov 03 2017 - 06:00
We’ve been having trouble with the boiler. And that’s not a euphemismHilary Fannin: In the domestic arena, boilers and their idiosyncrasies can represent the last frontier between sanity and full-blown delusionFri Oct 27 2017 - 06:00
I’ve found an eighth stage of grief, called You Must Be Shagging JokingHilary Fannin: An MRI scan made me realise what we accept about deathFri Oct 20 2017 - 06:00
Hilary Fannin: I don’t really believe in the notion of a truer, deeper selfAt the beach, the dog would sniff out swimmers’ carefully tucked-away underwear and eat itFri Oct 13 2017 - 06:00
Is that why you almost had sex in the short-term car park?Hilary Fannin: In the intensity of the moment one thing began to lead to another, my friend saidFri Oct 06 2017 - 06:00
I’m not alone in this strange post-death parlourI’m on the frontline. In the past few years we’ve lost an entire generationFri Sept 29 2017 - 06:00
I put my own name in the ‘deceased’ box instead of my mother’sHilary Fannin: Does great age make death easier? Of course it does. How could it not?Fri Sept 22 2017 - 08:55
I'm a lousy tourist. I like to nap in the bread basketHilary Fannin: I no longer gaze, slack-jawed and pinched with envy, at beautiful young couples entwined on matching beach towelsFri Sept 15 2017 - 09:25
‘You are having vivid dreams They’re not real. You’re not dying’Hilary Fannin: My mother looked at me as if from a great distance . . .Thu Sept 07 2017 - 16:37
I’m pulling the Goop plug – no jade eggs are going in my yoniThis time I’m serious about finishing with Gwyneth Paltrow’s online lifestyle magazineFri Jul 28 2017 - 05:00
‘We’ll be married 31 years. You’d get less for murder’Hilary Fannin: So many friends tied the knot in their early 20s. How are they still hitched?Fri Jul 21 2017 - 06:00
We don’t remember rain in the summers of our childhoodHilary Fannin: When I look back I see a cloudless blue sky above our suburban roadFri Jul 14 2017 - 06:00
It's no longer enough to shake your well-educated heads in lazy despairHilary Fannin: The image of Alan Kurdi’s body, washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015, was, for many of the students, emblematic of their sense of powerlessnessFri Jul 07 2017 - 10:29
My fascination with Gwyneth Paltrow's squeaky-clean colon is overHilary Fannin is getting fed up with Goop's white cotton shirts and irony-free adviceFri Jun 23 2017 - 10:09
Bloomsday: Searching for the spot in Howth where Molly Bloom said ‘yes’Hilary Fannin: Catching peace in communion with the past on a warm day in JuneFri Jun 16 2017 - 06:00
My wedding ring wouldn’t look out of place under the bonnet of a carHilary Fannin: I thought this while surrounded by bejewelled women drinking wine on a flight to MalagaFri Jun 09 2017 - 05:00
Breast density and other lessons from graduates of the cancer academyHilary Fannin: Informing women of their breast density could save livesFri Jun 02 2017 - 06:00
Hilary Fannin: ‘Memory cannot be abolished in a referendum’A friend coming home from London reminded me that the past does not recedeFri May 26 2017 - 05:58
What if Brigitte Macron were an ordinary-looking sixtysomething?Hilary Fannin: I marvel at how any woman in her 40s could spend time with a kid who produces more sebum than cashFri May 19 2017 - 06:00
'She quoted a price almost €40,000 more than the asking with 15 minutes viewing time left'Hilary Fannin: Home-hunting in Dublin these days is not for the faint of heartFri May 12 2017 - 06:00
Young voices are an antidote to cynicism and fearHilary Fannin: Young writers’ work is punching its way onto the Abbey stageFri May 05 2017 - 05:00
‘Hello,’ I shout into the empty space. ‘I’m home’Hilary Fannin: They used to emerge when I brought food back to the house. Now it’s just me and the catFri Apr 28 2017 - 06:00
During the night an elderly man died and a frightened woman had a strokeHilary Fannin: A&E is an oil slick of ailing humanity the State seems unable to absorbFri Apr 21 2017 - 08:04
‘As long as there is breath in our bodies we will take care of him’Hilary Fannin: The fight that parents in Ireland face on behalf of their autistic children is exhaustingFri Apr 14 2017 - 06:00
Somewhere along the line, several degrees of empathy fell off my moral compassHilary Fannin: At a push, I could be a tolerable dog-walker, but that’s about as far as my altruism extendsFri Apr 07 2017 - 06:00
To be heard these days it's best to be a monotonous manHilary Fannin: If you are a woman the media is more likely to critique your footwear - just ask Amal ClooneyFri Mar 31 2017 - 09:42
