Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly columns

‘How embarrassing is it for me to have three kids who are absolutely focking useless at rugby?’

Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘I’m considered by some pretty great judges of the game to be the greatest Irish centre no one has ever heard of’

The words every south Dublin rugby parent dreads: ‘Dad, I want to join the drama society’

After a thrashing to Wesley College, Johnny – my own son – says, ‘I don’t think I want to play rugby any more’

‘I’ve never said a word about Bray that wasn’t 100% warranted’

The old man is out on a double-date with Claire’s old dear from Bray of all places, and my inheritance is flashing before my eyes

‘We’re getting rid of the cor. Right focking now’

Joy Felton goes, ‘I hope you’re planning to move that thing?’ in her famous residents association voice

‘What’s this about my old man being on the apps?’

‘He’s on Tinder. I think he might have gone out on one or two dates with Amie with an -ie’s mother as well’

‘Dude, you’re going to have to choose between science and rugby’

Rhys Reddin is my outside-centre and possibly best player and I’m including my own kids in that

‘There’s a Londis in Foxrock? I’d say my old dear is turning in her–’

As Sorcha runs through her Christmas gift returns schedule – which she’s put me in charge of – I’m storting to hyperventilate

‘We’re going to run up the Sugar Loaf carrying rocks. Work through the pain barrier!’

Christian goes ‘What are you doing?’ when he sees us out training on New Year’s Day. He’s obviously forgotten about my world-famous intensity

‘Elf went missing and Sorcha’s old man went loop-the-focking-loop. He actually rang the Gords’

The Elf has been on a world tour; selfies in Paris with the Eiffel Tower, lying on Copacabana Beach in Rio

Christmas or no Christmas, I’m frankly disappointed by Sorcha’s lack of killer instinct

‘Sorcha, you can’t be a bad person, no matter how hord you try’

The old man goes, ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t muster any enthusiasm for Christmas this year’

Sorcha and I are getting the decorations in the attic when we find an old video cassette

‘We’re going to buy a sh**load of frozen turkeys - if there’s a shortage I can sell them for €500 each’

This being the humungous Christmas morket in – believe it or not – Belfast

‘Ronan is hanging out with the absolute scum of the earth: my old man and Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara’

Ronan has arrived with a present for Honor, and I’d like to know which gangland criminal it used to belong to

‘Dude, if you insist on coaching Blackrock, you can forget about me being your best man’

Christian, my best friend since we were basically kids, says ‘I never asked you to be my best man,’ which hurts like hell

‘It’s all right for you,’ Honor goes. ‘You can have any woman you want’

I try to dig down into my well of experiences for something to tell her. But I’ve never been dumped in my life

‘I don’t like who my son has become since he started playing rugby. He’s full of himself’

The parents are up in orms at a meeting that Fionn told me to recuse myself from, whatever that means

‘There’s no such thing as academic-sporting balance. Not in schools that are serious about being winners’

I’m there, 'I’ll turn up like Enoch literally Burke and then you’ll have a problem on your hands’

This is my son now – north Dublin’s leading wine snob

‘Tell me what you smeddle,’ he goes. ‘Liquorice – am I right? And blackbeddies?’

‘I’m not going to call you Mister anything,’ I tell the deputy principal, and the boys all stort sniggering

Slippers McRory was in my year back in the day. And to think, everyone predicted great things for him

Honor’s date for the debs is a looker. She clearly takes after her old man in that regord

Sorcha is up to 90, and still hoping Honor will decide to wear her dress from our debs in 1995

Poor, at Dublin Theatre Festival, is a show destined to keep returning and keep selling out

Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Katriona O’Sullivan’s memoir becomes a crowd-pleasing play starring Aisling O’Mara and Hollie Lawlor

Ronan pours the wine and goes, ‘It’s a surprising little number with notes of candyfloss, anchovies and balsawood’

The great and the good - and Ro’s old crew - have turned out for the big opening of Fionnuala’s on the Green

‘You were mugged in Dalkey? Things like that don’t happen there’

Sorcha screams when he sees me with two black eyes, but the last thing I want is for the gords to be called

‘I didn’t do a tap in school and yet life worked out pretty well for me’

There’s, like, 30 kids in front of me on the Castlerock pitch, just waiting for the Rossmeister to fill their heads with knowledge

‘The old man running a restaurant is like asking me to teach physics through Irish’

The old man has bought Shanahan’s on the Green and wants to turn it into a family business

‘Rugby is the best idea we’ve ever come up with as a species,’ I go, channelling Fr Fehily

I tag along as Brian, Johnny and Leo get the tour of Castlerock College from Fionn, but the school isn’t quite how I remember it

Sorcha goes, ‘The Dalkey Lobster Festival is this weekend. How am I going to show my face?’

Honor has just given Sorcha her biggest shock since she found out her teenage pen pal was actually a death row inmate in Texas

‘I think you should have a conversation with Honor about her drinking,’ Sorcha goes

We’re picking her up from the airport after her Leaving Cert holiday and – yeah, no – she’s mashed all right

‘I got thrun out of Amedica,’ Ronan goes. ‘Me visa was revoked’

‘There must be something we can do,’ I say. ‘Someone we can threaten. Or pay’

Zealous book bans and brilliant writers forged strong Irish Penguin links from the start

The publisher celebrates its 90th anniversary this month

When Honor drops the news, I sit there with my mouth open like someone from Roscommon seeing escalators for the first time

Honor’s debs is coming up, and Sorcha’s telling her not to make the same mistake she made

The old dear made a seating plan for her own funeral. She didn’t want ugly people in the first three pews

It’s the morning of Fionnuala’s funeral and the gaff is a scene of chaos

I get this sudden flashback to when I was six or seven and I’d hold the wheel steady for the old dear while she drove home, half-cut

Ross and Honor dress up the visitors’ room to take the old dear to her favourite restaurant for a bloody Mary with an extra shot

The old dear goes, ‘Sorcha? I don’t know anyone of that name. Is she one of your tarts, Ross?’

Ross and Brett are hosting a living funeral for Fionnuala, but she can’t remember anyone

Oisinn goes, ‘Dude, you’re saying goodbye. You do realise that? You’re saying goodbye to your old dear’

‘I hope she has one of her good days – because there’ll be some crowd at her living funeral’

Brett goes, ‘She’s close to the end, Ross. I was thinking we should arrange a living funeral for her’

The old dear is pretending she doesn’t know who Brett is, in the hopes of scaring him back to the US and as far away from yours truly as possible

I’m always telling Sorcha to tone down the southside when we come out to Bray but she never listens

Sorcha’s friend Claire has opened yet another cafe but this time with a new gimmick: all the staff are ex-offenders

‘I haven’t really been living before now,’ Brett tells his wife. ‘Ross has slept with more than 800 women’

Brett is in bed with a woman he met at the Divorcee Disco when his wife arrives at the front door

‘I’m not even a bit stressed,’ Honor goes, ‘I haven’t done a focking tap for these exams’

It’s the night before the Leaving Cert, and Sorcha wants to have a mother-daughter hort-to-hort

‘He obviously decided that he’d wasted his life, focusing on career, marriage and family goals’

Brett has arrived downstairs for breakfast with a woman named Rowena, and Sorcha is accusing me of corrupting him

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