Looking back through a prism of glass and cowpatMy St Patrick’s Day malaise has arrived again – a hangover from the drizzling 1960s, the squally 1970s and a couple of damp years in the 1980sFri Mar 14 2014 - 01:00
Women should blow their own trumpetsWe shouldn’t give a damn what other people think of us, or what we look like, or who or how we choose to loveFri Mar 07 2014 - 01:00
I would have eaten the budgerigar to see TahitiAn attempt to organise my books brought me back to iodine tablets and youthful travel fantasiesFri Feb 28 2014 - 01:00
The Beatles and U2? Middle-aged women are more complex than thatWe’re slippery fish: unpredictable and difficult to categoriseFri Feb 21 2014 - 01:00
Happy loved-up lemmings day. Here’s your cardLet’s ditch Mr Hallmark and have an alternative Valentine’s Day celebrationFri Feb 14 2014 - 01:00
I’m old, cold and weary, but still rattled by RomeoAs I watched a play about Romeo and Juliet grown old, around me the silence began to break with the low hum of sympathy, the recognition of loss. Tears spilledFri Feb 07 2014 - 01:00
What do the tourists in Temple Bar make of us?A walk through the area on a wet Saturday night recently proved that some things never changeFri Jan 31 2014 - 01:00
Marriage, monogamy and the mirage of perfectionI read a survey the other day that said older people are more accepting and compassionate about affairs of the heartFri Jan 24 2014 - 01:00
Welcome to Club 50, Michelle Obama. Let me give you the tourWhat do women in their 50s want? Respect, equality, peace and affection. Plus work, sex, friendship, money, reasonable health, a room of their own, and their children to pick up their own washingFri Jan 17 2014 - 01:00
Go away, January: self-improvement makes me think about death’Tis the season to hurl our grubby cushions on the bonfire, to stand in front of the dusty mirror holding our midriffs in our capable handsFri Jan 10 2014 - 01:00
Any minute now, the gym offers will start to arriveAnd that dirty word ‘detox’ will play about your lips like the tingle of aged Stilton or the rosy kiss of a Turkish delightFri Dec 27 2013 - 01:00
Happy humbug to you all – now where did I leave the corkscrew?Apparently Sarah Palin has written a book about putting the Christ back into Christmas. She should drop in to my place. He crops up a lotFri Dec 20 2013 - 01:00
When ‘happy Christmas’ is an order, not a salutationGuest psychologists on radio at this time of year tell us to lower our expectations of Christmas. They’re right, of courseFri Dec 13 2013 - 01:00
When reality television is preferable to realityMy addiction to ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ started around the time my husband was being prodded and probed and diced and spliced in hospitalFri Dec 06 2013 - 01:00
Before there were foodies, there was coddle and cheekIn my childhood days, couscous was a whispered song, uttered to entice stray cats into a sackFri Nov 29 2013 - 13:32
Wearing Kate Middleton’s tights cheered me right upThe friendliness of Westport helped rescue me from that November feelingFri Nov 22 2013 - 01:00
I’m the only sibling who hasn’t had cancerWhen my brother was diagnosed, I momentarily felt like I hadn’t been invited out to playFri Nov 15 2013 - 01:00
There was a slurping sound. Man, that felt goodBattle with a blocked wastepipe plunged me into thought: I don’t really understand the varied tapestry of this country at allFri Nov 08 2013 - 01:00
The ghost I met as a girlThe spirit was a young woman. She appeared monochrome. She defiantly floated rather than walkedFri Nov 01 2013 - 01:00
My friend, the girl out of tune with her timeShe came of age among tribes of girls wearing furry boots that cost more than a well in a desert, but she came from a different worldFri Oct 25 2013 - 01:00
Thanks Jordan. You got me through pre-budget dayKatie Price, the babe who launched a thousand implants, now appears anachronistic, almost antiqueFri Oct 18 2013 - 01:00
Bridget Jones and me: 51 and in slimming knickersI admire Helen Fielding’s nous but I never much bought into Bridget’s worldFri Oct 11 2013 - 01:00
I’m not in a book club, but if I was . . .Fiftysomething: The sheer tedium of Gone Girl, ‘the thriller of the year’, will obliterate your critical facultiesFri Oct 04 2013 - 01:00
Getting high on Nelly and nostalgiaThe high nelly is a classic Irish bicycle, and being back in the saddle brings back classic Irish memoriesFri Sept 27 2013 - 01:00
Taking the Sting out of tantric sexWhat is tantric sex, and does anyone, except Sting and the finely sculpted Trudie Styler, practise it?Fri Sept 20 2013 - 01:00
Clipping in with barber-shop thoughts on T-shirtsThere may be times when the global situation appears so dire, and the self so powerless, but the world is still full of tiny moments of graceThu Sept 12 2013 - 18:45
What did feminism have to do with me?Fiftysomething: In my youth, it felt like the choices on offer to us knee-socked convent girls were desperately limitedFri Sept 06 2013 - 01:00
We had her ashes, divided into five glass jarsFiftysomething: My mother-in-law was tall and strong and moved in full sailFri Aug 30 2013 - 01:00
An accidental ‘football mom’I brought my Arsenal-supporting son to see his team take on Villa. It all started so wellFri Aug 23 2013 - 01:00
Growing up in a Dublin suburb, then and nowI grew up in a Dublin suburb, and my son grew up in a Dublin suburb; there the comparison endsFri Aug 16 2013 - 01:00
Fall in love with west Cork and you’re in for a long, tricky marriageThe Going Coastal series continues with a kayaking and walking trip along the shores of west Cork from Union Hall to RingWed Aug 14 2013 - 01:00
Me, a socialite? It must have been the paint fumesFiftysomething: I found myself fantasising about a different life while decorating recentlyFri Aug 09 2013 - 01:00
A gated community for the rich in Spain? No thanksGive me a busy egalitarian community over a gilded cage any dayFri Aug 02 2013 - 01:00
Smells like teen spiritCriticised for looking bored on their visits to a library and a lake this week, Malia and Sasha Obama were just being teenagersSat Jun 22 2013 - 01:00
Want to fix the world? Everything you need is at home, says Shannon HayesThe home should be a centre for social change, says US ‘radical homemaker’ Shannon Hayes, who speaks in Dublin this weekSat Jun 15 2013 - 01:00
English Paper 1 is on. Break out the bikiniHilary Fannin's Fifty Something columnFri Jun 07 2013 - 01:00
Why my douze points never went to DanaAll kinds of everything and nothing about EurovisionFri May 24 2013 - 01:00
Shorts are not a man’s best friendFiftysomething: Ankle-socked toddler-man has all the sexual allure of a washing-machine manualFri May 10 2013 - 02:00
When I was 10 the bailiffs came'I could imagine the squiggly armchairs settling in nicely, whispering about their previously traumatic incarnations to all the erudite bottoms who sat in them'Fri Apr 05 2013 - 06:00
