Siblings

Sibling Content

21 August, 2025
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Siblings

My brother was going to stay Sunday night as he was going to the Oasis gig but then cancelled as the tickets were too dear. I would say that most people had probably secured their tickets sometime in advance of the Friday before the gig. As the children say, “He’s not a tame uncle, you know.” He’s full of surprises. However, he met one of them for lunch recently and parted with €50 as well which was gratefully received by the indigent student fund trustees. Herself is scheduled to meet him in September when she returns from her extensive holidaying. She’s a regular dining companion. I can’t help being concerned that it may all beggar my brother.

My sister hasn’t been in Dublin for ages and the last time she was up it lashed rain and our only outing was a rather grim stroll around the block. However, we have been down to Cork for her not fifty yet party. I have to say, it was pretty good. She had a pizza van parked in the driveway; a magician; a children’s entertainer; and herself and Michael were scheduled to give a historical tour of the area but had to extemporize and give the talk inside instead because of the phenomenal rain which, arguably, follows her around. Still, a pretty impressive logistical feat. I contributed my mite by digging up baby pictures for her to hang up around the house. I think it’s fair to say that, notwithstanding the challenging climactic conditions, a good time was had by all.

It was the weekend of the all-Ireland hurling final and Cork were favourites to win. The city was festooned in flags. Consider this motorway bridge on the approach to the city.

On our drive back to Dublin, I said, “Will we listen to this hurling match on the radio?” I have literally never watched a full championship match in my life, let alone listened to one on the radio but my curiosity was piqued after our Cork flag experience.

GAA commentators are known for their quirky style so I was only mildly surprised to hear the commentator opening with the line, “Belinda Carlisle said ‘heaven is a place on earth’ and today she could be talking about Croke Park”. Anyway, to cut a long story short Cork were winning comfortably in the first half and then utterly collapsed in the second allowing Tipperary to win. It was such a collapse that it was noteworthy in all kind of ways. It spawned a series of headlines and none of them flattering to Cork. Apparently there is a phrase indicative of solid contentment in rural Tipp – “the hay saved and Cork bet”. Well they delivered on that on the day.

It was a bad day for the bookies; for the man who got “Cork All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champions 2025” tattooed on his arm; and for the woman who decided that now might finally be a good time to take an interest in Gaelic games.

A Project

25 June, 2025
Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Siblings, Twins, Youngest Child

We have a lot of books. I was lamenting my book overload problems and commenting on my long term plan to get built in bookshelves in the dining room (v long term – about 12 years at that point) to my sister and she pointed out that her friend is married to a carpenter and perhaps he could do it for us. I seized the day.

We began decanting books from the existing bookshelves on May 10. This was exhausting. My sister commented when she saw the piles “bookshelves are a really good storage system”. She is obsessed with storage systems but she wasn’t wrong.

Will we just have a look at that again from another angle?

It’s not like we hadn’t selected any books to give away but I would have to concede that progress on that front was pretty poor. I note from inspection of the picture below that the giving away pile initially included “A Town like Alice” which I subsequently rescued. Not a huge success.

Then we had to move the existing bookshelves out of the room. We moved them upstairs. Some of them we repurposed but some we needed to give away. I placed ads on various “things to give away” websites. We had some interest but not as much as I would have hoped and, indeed, one bookshelf that I want to lose remains squatting upstairs.

As always when dealing with the public, one is surprised by people’s unreliability and how little people take in of what one writes. One young woman turned up with a granny shopping trolled to take away a set of bookshelves and seemed disappointed when shelves which I had specified in the ad needed a van to take away would not fit. A number of people believed that the shelves could be dismounted but found as I had specified in the ad that they could not (Habitat glued them as well as screwed them together, I don’t know why but they were pretty sturdy). Two young Latin American women (one from Chile, one from Mexico – we had a chance to chat later) turned up at 11 at night to collect a smaller (but still heavy) bookshelf and proposed to carry it to their accommodation about a mile away; they could barely carry it down the stairs with our help. I drove them home with the shelf in the boot for which I will doubtless get my reward in heaven.

The desk where I compose this deathless prose was removed also. That’s why there hasn’t been deathless prose for a while. I do not enjoy typing on the phone.

We also removed from the room a Victorian pod table (this link shows the kind of table which I note was for auction; was in better condition than mine and was cheaper than my repair estimate, we move on) which used to belong to my Nana and which, sadly, lists. Having moved it out along with the vast stock of photographs which used to sit on it, I bit the bullet and called an antique furniture restorer to come and have a look at it. Ages for him to come. Ages for him to send the estimate (“I’m on holidays at the moment, text me again in 10 days”) and within 20 minutes of him sending the estimate, I got a contrite call from Mr. Waffle telling me he had broken the leg off the table while trying to put it back together. I nearly cried. In the end, you will be relieved to hear, the restorer said that his estimate was already so vast that fixing the leg made no difference; he didn’t put it in those terms but that was the implication. When can he collect it you wonder? “Text me after the weekend and we’ll agree a date.” Of course.

John the carpenter made the shelves in the room. He looks after the children at home so he could only work 10-2 (after dropping the children to school and before picking them up). It took a good while but it was an excellent job. He left us for a well-earned family holiday on May 27 (and returned after the holiday to fix a number of other items around the house which had been bothering me for some time and which I had raised with him during his time with us – honestly my marriage to Mr. Waffle united the two unhandiest people of our generation).

Then nothing happened until June 11 when the painter was finally free to come. Based on progress on day 1, I thought this would be a quick job.

Well that was stupid of me.

The painter left us on June 18 and then the paint had to dry. Finally, on Sunday June 22 we began putting books back on the shelves. It certainly felt like the longest day of the year. Our relationship nearly broke down over the categorisation of memoir and biography. I wanted a separate historic biography section but it was not to be and now Bruce Springsteen is beside George III and if you think that’s right, you’re wrong. My legs have only just recovered from climbing up and down the ladder.

We did find some more books to give away with great reluctance. Our selection of coffee table books about Brussels, for example, took a bit of a hit.

I said to Mr. Waffle, “This feels like Swedish death cleaning”. “Don’t worry,” said he, “there’s still a huge selection of 90s novels for the children to throw out after we die.” It is true that 90s novels feature strongly as those were formative years for us and also, now we are much more likely to borrow from the library than to buy a book. I also have a huge collection of very heavy art books which I have not had access to in years. Quite excited to see these and also a bit nervous that the shelves will not bear their weight. But behold the finished product.

My brother came to stay last night and I made him admire the bookshelves. He had to admire because they are admirable and I made him. “But why do you need so many books?” he asked, spoiling for a fight. “You will never read them all again,” he said pointing out the blindingly obvious. “Well, they’re to show people how clever we are as well,” I said. “In that case, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ by Stieg Larsson isn’t doing a lot of heavy lifting.” Unanswerable.

I could honestly do with fewer tradesmen in the house after our epic bookshelf project but earlier in the summer we met a solar panel salesman. Our neighbour had got them and we went with the same crowd. The salesman made it sound amazing and pain free. It has not been amazing and pain free. Among the elements not covered by the salesman but articulated by the engineer who came some weeks later in the salesman’s wake was that we would need to get our own electrician to link the hot water tank in the utility room to the fuse box beside the hall door (surely there was already some link?). Anyway the electrician came and said we would need to get rid of all of our under stairs shelves to fit the wires; next day John the carpenter came back, talked to the electrician and took everything out (all the contents of under the stairs are now in the utility room, thanks for asking) and the electrician is going to come back on Friday. And I am hoping John who, I suspect, is regretting that he ever came near us, will come and put them back next week. And we still haven’t actually got the solar panels. More on this story as it develops.

Michael has taken to singing this song around the house.

The Eye of the Beholder

29 April, 2025
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc., Siblings

I was at the Hugh Lane Gallery recently. Francis Bacon’s studio has been reconstructed in the Gallery; and has been a big attraction there for many years. It was brought piece by piece from his London attic and re-instated in the Hugh Lane. I am not a big Francis Bacon fan but it is interesting. I took a photo and sent it in to the family group chat captioning it “My worst nightmare”. A hilarious line reflecting on the artist’s studio and my own slight obsession with tidiness. Like many of these hilarious lines of mine, it went unread in the family group chat except by my saintly husband who, on first glance thought it was actually my parents’ attic in its glory days (it has now been tamed by my sister in a project stretching over many months). I have to say, actually, it does resemble the attic except there is marginally more floor space in the studio.

Whatever Works

28 April, 2025
Posted in: Princess, Siblings

When herself came home over Easter, she found her copy of a VERY LONG work on Spinoza on the floor beside her bed. She had to give a talk on Spinoza once (the reason for this eludes me) and this book was part of the spoils of that adventure, I think. She was a bit surprised that the book was on the floor as she felt she would not have left it there but she thought no more about it until she met my brother for lunch.

He occasionally stays with us in Dublin and sleeps in her room. It transpired that when he was here, he had been reading Spinoza. We were all a bit surprised; it just didn’t seem his kind of thing. She clarified. He had been using it as an aid to sleep. He was still at the early stages but he found it exceptionally soporific. He pointed out to herself that the preface indicates that it is good for the student, the lecturer, the casual reader and the in-depth scholar. It was, however, his freely expressed view that it was good for none of these people. Let us trust that the author can be philosophical about the additional off label use (as it were) to which his scholarly work is being put.

At Least You Have Your Health or Happy Birthday to Me

6 April, 2025
Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings

I was 56 last month which is a surprise to me. I took the day off work. Mr. Waffle, sadly, was stuck at work on the day of my birthday but the previous day we had gone out for an adventure to Carlingford which is always nice. There is a new greenway around the edge of the bay. It’s a shared pedestrian/cycling space and on this beautiful day, it was lovely to see so many families out and about but it did not make for an exactly speedy cycling experience.

I was surprised just how close Warrenpoint across the water was. I always thought it was a bit further away. I also didn’t realise how industrial it is. To the left of the photo below is a lot less appealing.

The route goes as far as Narrow Water Keep. For years, I’ve been hearing about the progress of the Narrow Water bridge which will link Carlingford (Republic of Ireland) with Warrenpoint (Northern Ireland) across the water. In my mind’s eye, I saw it as an enormous bridge requiring huge engineering works but honestly having seen the distance, I half think I could throw it up myself. Whatever is delaying it, I can’t imagine that it’s engineering problems. If you look closely at the (not great) picture below you will see the keep which was tantalisingly close across the water.

Mr. Waffle found the greenway a bit cabined, cribbed, confined but I quite liked it. In fact it was all very pleasant except for the signs that said, “Cooley peninsula says no to the Greenway” which made me feel that we were not entirely welcome.

There was also a house with a Trump flag flying. I have to say I have not seen one of those in Ireland before.

Undeterred by my cycling adventure the previous day, on my birthday I took myself off to the southern seaside suburbs for another cycle. Here is your correspondent on Killiney beach. They say Killiney Bay is like the Bay of Naples. Honestly, it’s all very nice but it’s no Bay of Naples.

Herself called me and we had a long and quite delightful chat on the phone as I cycled along. She was on video call and I had her in my handbag in my basket and she said that she felt like a small dog as she peered out the top.

I got presents, I got cake, I had a day off, the sun shone. All in all a pretty satisfactory birthday.

I had gone down to Cork a bit before the big day to have a birthday dinner with my brother and sister (more presents, thank you, I don’t mind if I do). That was nice but I found Cork a bit depressed; a lot of closed shops and Patrick Street down at heel. I hope that this is not a portent of things to come in the new world trade dispensation. My sister found a picture of my father on his graduation in 1949. Taking it all very seriously, clearly.

My brother and sister got me Blue Book vouchers. If you ever want to stay somewhere in Ireland, North or South, I strongly recommend a Blue Book venue (not always super pricey, particularly north of the border, but always, always lovely). My sister also got me a bird feeder and I have reached an age where I was genuinely thrilled. So far the birds haven’t been as interested as I would like and the tableau below may tell you all you need to know.

At my great age, I decided no harm to go for a pre-birthday check up with the GP. I was fine. On the advice of a friend, I asked her to send me for a Dexa scan. It checks bone density. Since both my mother and maternal grandmother had osteoporosis, I feared the worst. But I am perfect. I have often lamented that in dimensions I take after my paternal grandmother’s family (round and low to the ground) but I tell you what they were all healthy and lived forever and I have reached an age where I am no longer quite as keen to be tall and willowy (still somewhat keen though, I cannot lie) and very keen to remain healthy; so I am pleased that I appear to be like them on the inside as well as the outside.

Playing tennis recently I injured myself and have taken a couple of weeks off tennis going around like hop a long Cassidy. I diagnosed my injury with the help of google (as recommended by all professionals, ahem) as Achilles tendonitis. The Mayo Clinic was almost insultingly accurate in describing my problem “It’s also common in middle-aged people who play sports, such as tennis …only on the weekends”. Fine. I’ve been asking around and so many people I know have had it that I am sure I am right. However, you will be pleased to hear that if I am not fully recovered next week, I will, sigh, make an appointment with the physio. It’s a weird injury in that it only hurts when walking. I completely forget about it when I sit down and get a mild shock every time I start walking which, I have discovered, is hardly ever. I thought I was always hopping up from my desk for various reasons. Not so, in fact. This is not an entirely welcome discovery.

Celebrating any birthdays yourself?

Arts etc.

30 March, 2025
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Reading etc., Siblings, Twins, Youngest Child

Mr. Waffle and I went to see “Dr. Strangelove” at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. It’s where all the big shows that come to Dublin go. I find it unsatisfactory as a theatre as it is ginormous and a bit lacking in atmosphere. The sets were amazing but the play only alright. I don’t mind Steve Coogan but I don’t love, love, love him. However, the rest of the audience were apparently only there to see him and when he appeared on stage he had to break character to acknowledge the rapturous applause. I only went because Armando Ianucci was involved and I love him and had heard him interviewed about the play on “This American Life”. Honestly, I wouldn’t say it was his best work but I may have been prejudiced by the fact that everyone else found it hilarious and it only occasionally made me smile. I thought the woman beside me was going to have to be stretchered out such was her hilarity while I smiled thinly at the very odd joke that appealed.

Michael went to see “And Juliet” which was recommended by a commenter. His friend got tickets for her birthday and invited him along. He found it reasonably enjoyable. I am coming to the conclusion that my family may be hard to please.

I took a half day from work to see Michael in a lunchtime performance of a college play. It is doubtless his mother’s prejudice but I thought he was really excellent.

Mr. Waffle and I investigated an Argentinian Bakery in the Liberties. It is called Bakeology and I would recommend. Our empanada needs are met for the foreseeable.

There has been plenty of cinema in my life since I was here last. I enjoyed “A Real Pain” as did the Oscar voters. “Bridget Jones” did not trouble the Oscars but I must say I really enjoyed it. A friend and I went for dinner after work and then saw it in the Stella in Rathmines which I would recommend for a little treat.

Mr. Waffle and I went to see another Iranian film – “Seed of the Sacred Fig”. You would want to be in the whole of your health for these Iranian films, I will say that. Very worthy and good and all but I was a bit wrung by the end.

As part of the festival of the Francophonie we went to a Moroccan film (and international buffet – can I deny that this was the major temptation? I can not). The film was “Animalia” and it’s about a girl who marries into a rich family and struggles to adapt; she stays at home one day while they are all out and – plot twist – gets cut off from the family by an alien invasion. The budget doesn’t really stretch to aliens so it’s just lights in the sky and fog. It was ok, I would say. Buffet was great – lots of Moroccan specialties. We met the Moroccan ambassador (who had introduced the film) having a cigarette outside afterwards. “What did you think?” he asked. “It was delicious,” said Mr. Waffle. “No, the film,” I hissed. “Um, very thought provoking,” he said politely. “It was a bit strange alright,” said the ambassador “and what a time to screen it early evening during Ramadan.” Not something that had occurred to me, I must confess, but it certainly made me think that he had performed his part admirably for someone who hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since before dawn.

I saw Edmund de Waal give a talk in the Chester Beatty library. I found him an amazing, fascinating, heart warming speaker. If you ever get a chance you should definitely go and see him. This was all the more amazing as it was online (only the elect got in person tickets and I was consumed with envy as he passed around netsuke for people to hold) and online things are, as we all know, not as good as in person, and it was still absolutely amazing.

I went to a talk on the Flying Dutchman in art which appeared to be largely a plug for the Flying Dutchman which the Irish National Opera are running in the Bord Gáis theatre. My guess is that they may have overestimated the appetite of the Irish public for opera (it’s a big, big venue) but who knows? I once saw “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” from the gods of the Brussels opera house and it has effectively extinguished any desire I might have to ever see another Wagner opera so it’s a no from me. I was chatting to the INO people afterwards and told them how the Princess had done a project with them during Covid and it had saved her sanity. Like many another thing the Princess does, her application to take part in this project took her parents by surprise as we are not particularly in opera and she had certainly never seemed interested before but then she is a constant series of surprises to her parents.* This lovely woman Sharon Carty put in loads of time online one on one with her and she has an abiding enthusiasm for and interest in opera. So, it’s not like I’m not grateful to the INO, just not grateful enough.

I also went to a talk on Mazzolino and the renaissance in Ferrara. I mean, alright. Can’t say that I now love Mazzolino of whom I was entirely ignorant previously but interesting enough. I went to a talk on Sarah Cecilia Harrison whose portraits I really liked and who seems, in life, to have been a very interesting and extremely contrary person. Finally, in visual arts news did I mention that I went to a talk on Eileen Gray? I will say this, the more I hear about Le Corbusier the less I like him. While I was there I had a look at the Harry Clarke stained glass which is temporarily in Dublin as Cork’s Crawford museum is closed for renovations. It was strange to see these old friends in new surroundings. I think the detail below is a self-portrait of the artist. A handsome man whose private life was, I believe, complex.

Let me throw in some more pictures of his glass from Bewley’s cafe in Grafton street. Because I can.

As I mentioned above, the Crawford Gallery is closed for renovations. Alas, alack. It’s not open again until 2027. It is being extended. Here is the text about the extension.

Here is the artist’s impression of the extension.

Really, the glass box on the roof will ensure that the character of the gallery is “maintained and enhanced with great sensitivity”? It’s appalling. I mean, I feel you King Charles. I’m sure it will be lovely from the inside but it’s quite dreadful from the outside.

My sister is still cleaning out my parents’ house and I am generally pretty ruthless about saying I don’t want things but books are my Achilles heel. My grandmother bought a large mahogany book case and its contents from Canon Mulcahy in Kilmallock at some point – maybe in the 40s. The bookcase and all its contents made their way to my parents’ house probably in about 1970. This means that my parents’ house had a fine collection of 19th and early 20th century books with a strong focus on theology, if that was your thing, but also other books: Thom’s directories, etiquette books, (worthy) novels etc. My sister pulled from this range of books a physics primer from 1874 and asked whether I would like it. Well, as you can imagine, I should have said no but we have a physics student in the house and I was weak and said yes. I showed it to my physics student who said a lot has changed in physics since 1874 but whose eye was caught by the name on the flyleaf. We found our man – JJ Joyce – in the census. He was a Jeremiah Joyce son of James W Joyce who was a successful businessman in Kilmallock and who was very active in the land league. Kilmallock (which has a great deal of local history for such a small place) has an active local history society and we were able to find out much more about James W. He was gaoled for his activities in the land league and kept a diary – it mostly seems a bit dull about managing his business back in Kilmallock – but look, look at this entry, what did he get sent to himself in Limerick gaol? Yes indeed, the physics primer which we now held in our little paws.

So that was pretty cool. I rang my sister to tell her and she thought I had discovered that the book was valuable. Alas, no. But still, my physics student brought it in to college where it was an object of fascination to the young people. One of them had an uncle in Kilmallock so he got to keep it. This seems a much better fate for it than any other I can imagine although I do wish I’d taken a photo.

Yesterday Mr. Waffle and I went on a nearly 3 hour walking tour of the city – v good, I recommend Arran Henderson for all your walking tour needs; I always learn something new and I have lived here a long time. As we were looking at a Dominican church he said how intellectual and clever the Dominicans were. As though reading the minds of his audience, he said, “Have you heard the joke about the Dominicans and the Jesuits? As you know the Dominicans dealt with the Cathars and the Albigensian heresy and the Jesuits were set up as a counter reformation force. Have you ever met a Cathar?” The poor old Cathars. As we walked on Mr. Waffle murmured to me, “Just brute force, no subtlety or intelligence.”

In the afternoon, we went to a talk by fantastic author Jan Carson who I nearly saw in 2022 and have been keen to see since. The French literature festival put together an excellent programme – all free, you’ve got to love the French – and who was on it? No prizes. The links to French literature were a bit tenuous, I mean Jan Carson’s French publisher was there? I think Jan Carson is an extraordinarily talented writer and I loath magical realism which, honestly, is a big feature of her work but somehow it’s ok when she does it. But, you know, being a great writer does not necessarily translate to being a great speaker so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As they say, I need not have worried.

I found her really interesting. She comes from a very strict religious background. She’s from Ballymena in the North and when she was a little girl there was a sign on the roundabout saying “Ballymena still says no” and she thought it meant to line dancing as she had heard so much against it from the pulpit. Her family seem to have been very strict: no cinema, no theatre and the Bible as, if not the only book, certainly the main book available for reading at home. She attributes her interest in magical realism to hearing sermons on the Book of Revelation every Sunday between ages 10 and 12. When asked about her family and community’s attitude to her work she said that that was the first question she was always asked. She told a very moving story about a children’s play which she wrote which is currently on in the Lyric theatre in Belfast. Her mother a woman of 70 who had never been inside a theatre before, came to see it and sat and cried throughout the show. The mother said, “All these people are here, and they’re enjoying themselves and you wrote this.”

After this very touching reply, the next question came from an older gent with a booming voice and apparently unshakeable self-confidence. “Which lady writers have influenced you?” he said. “Do you like Simone de Beauvoir?” There was some hilarious confusion as she had just not heard the word “lady” and thought he meant French writers but the interviewer clarified. “I like Flannery O’Connor,” Jan Carson offered helpfully. “Is he an American?” our patrician gentleman boomed back slightly disapprovingly. He seemed not one whit discomfited by the information that Flannery O’Connor was a woman and it was poor old Jan Carson who seemed momentarily discombobulated.

Anyway recommended and not as well attended as it should have been. A win for me I guess as I got her to sign a book for me and there was almost no queue. She mentioned that she has another new book out next year. Bound to be worth a read.

Any cultural outings of your own?

*Text received last Monday: “I’m on a plane on my way to Warsaw. Did I mention I was doing this???” Reader, she did not.