Not wanting to be outdone by the Beckhams, I decided we should mark our anniversary
And it's often triggered by life's milestones and challenges: children's birthdays, school summer holidays and the end of another
academic year
; a child finishing school altogether; a
Leaving Cert
holiday and the tortured helplessness felt at home while himself is living his best life – and even remembering to wear factor 50 sunscreen, after all; watching the price of chocolate increase; the inability to find a pair of decent-fitting jeans in this post-skinny jeans era.
Who am I? What am I doing with my life? How the hell did I get here?
These are life's big questions that I ask of myself more frequently than I care to admit.
READ MORE
Anyway, the latest thing to trigger me was my 25th
wedding
anniversary. How can that possibly have come around already? I still feel 25, never mind 25 years married, though my right hip begs to differ. But silver wedding anniversaries? Well they're for old people, surely. And I refuse to get old. And how can it really be 25 years anyway, when I can still clearly smell the orange and lemons of Sorrento.
We've never really been ones for marking wedding anniversaries. We were already parents by the time the first anniversary happened, so that trumped the – at the time, seemingly self-indulgent – idea of celebrations. After all, there was sleep deprivation to endure.
And so beyond, on our 20th anniversary, mentioning in The Irish Times that he forgot our first one – because, you know, a wife with an axe to grind and a newspaper column is not for faint-hearted husbands – we've never really made a thing of it.
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Jen Hogan: It's our 20th wedding anniversary. I wonder will he remember
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But this time, I decided I wanted to make a thing of it. After all, the Beckhams, who share a wedding anniversary with us, never miss an opportunity to get the wedding album out on social media. So, not wanting to be outdone by someone who used to play for Manchester United, I decided we should buy some purple suits and head back to Rome and show the children where we got married, for the occasion.
Alas, they appeared to be all out of matching purple suits that day I went to Dundrum Shopping Centre. And, it turned out we couldn't afford to go to Rome either, on account of having a ridiculous number of children. So we settled on Galway, which is more or less the same thing anyway, if you squint a little.
I am not averse to using a bit of emotional blackmail when I need to.
Judge me all you like, I'll probably just use it in a future column. And so, taking no chances in the quest to get all my children together to celebrate this momentous occasion, I lead with a 'more than anything I can possibly think of, for our 25th wedding anniversary, your dad and I would love to get a night away with the nine of us. All of us together again. Are you free next weekend?' text to the one who had the cheek to grow up, move out and leave me with all these boys.
She said she was.
Discussions ensued, between the siblings, over which child would bunk in with which child, largely determined by who was deemed to fart the most (or the least, depending on your perspective).
The van was packed and the Hogans were off to Galway. All nine of us. Together again. Order was restored to my galaxy.
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The summer juggle: How to work while the kids are off
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We were staying at the Connacht, a family-friendly hotel whose claims of which are put to the test by my supersized brood (it passes, with flying colours). A swim was first on the agenda. 'You're coming too, aren't you Mum?,' the youngest asked, giving me no out. Ten minutes after everyone else had got into the pool, I joined them. Because that's how I roll. A woman smiled at me, and I smiled back, thinking to myself how friendly the natives were. Then she gave a gentle wave as I walked past. And I waved back, thinking again 'super friendly people'.
'You didn't know it was me, did you?,' the friendly woman said laughing, as the familiar dread of meeting someone out of context and not recognising them began to set in. I was going to have to come clean. Turns out it was just the curse of shortsightedness, and a world viewed stubbornly in soft focus. To the point I hadn't recognised my own daughter.
The eyesight, at least, is consistent with 25 years ago. We swam, ate, played and laughed, and I even forgot this anniversary made me sound middle-aged.
Because we were all together again, and everything made sense.
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Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
Lucy Steeds' The Artist wins Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize
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This weekend's Irish Times Eason offer is Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan, just €5.99, a €6 saving. Eason offer Lucy Steeds was named winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2025 for her novel The Artist, tonight at the Waterstones flagship bookshop in Piccadilly. Set over one sweltering summer during the 1920s, The Artist focuses on an enigmatic painter, the young British journalist set on penning a piece on him, and the artist's seemingly unworldly niece. As the young man sets out to write his piece on the great and terrifying painter, tensions between the three come to a dramatic conclusion. The prize consists of £5,000 and the promise of ongoing commitment to the winner's writing career. Last year's winner, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, shot into the bestseller charts after the announcement and the Irish author went on to be nominated for the Waterstones Book of the Year, the Nero Book Awards, the BAMB fiction award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. 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The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘I hate the people in this studio', says Ireland AM star as co-hosts poke fun ahead of All-Ireland final
IRELAND AM star Eric Roberts was left raging after his co-hosts made a dig at him ahead of the All-Ireland final this weekend. The 2 Eric Roberts showed support for his home county on Ireland AM this morning 2 Eric's co-hosts made a hilarious dig at him in the studio The star was back on the hit breakfast show this morning alongside usual hosts During the ad break, video of himself showing support for his county team. The 34-year-old told fans: "Another fantastic show this morning here on However, the READ MORE IN IRELAND AM Alan and Muireann both had cheeky grins on their faces as they continued to chant for Kerry right in front of Eric. A raging Eric panned the camera back to himself and shook his head. The dad-of-one then got right up to the camera and jokingly remarked, "I hate the people in this studio", which caused Muireann and Alan to burst out laughing. Earlier this week, Irish Most read in News TV The 27-year-old the ITV2 villa alongside OG Islander Ben Holbrough. Ben was criticised by viewers for his run-ins with a few of the Love Islanders whilst on the show. Andrada Pop appears on Ireland AM Ben and Andrada have been continuing to get to know each other outside of the villa. The Balbriggan beauty appeared on Ireland AM to speak about her experience. Muireann O'Connell said to her: "It's really interesting because you go in there at Casa Amor so have less of a standing with the public and with Ben, now you've probably seen it from the outside, viewers are seeing some sort of mistreatment of women . "Like telling Yasmin that she's irrelevant, that the audience are kind of sitting there going, 'Hold on a second, dude, this is… what are you up to?'. CLEARING THINGS UP "And you're kind of stuck in that situation... with him then, like, because he can kind of drag you down." Andrada understood where Muireann was coming from but made sure to clear things up. She said: "When the producers were calling, [asking], 'Who's your top three?', Ben was there at the very start, and then I kind of took him off after that [incident]. "But he's very different in there, that's what I mean. It's like, what you see on TV, it's only 45 minutes out of the day, do you know what I mean? "So, there's a lot more that goes on."
Irish Times
13 hours ago
- Irish Times
Dear Erin: Why do Irish people love to get annoyed about ‘Oirish' films?
The most popular defence when you have failed to recognise, say, a broad pastiche of Donald Trump on social media is that the reality is now so extreme no parody is possible. Almost exactly 20 years ago, one Nathan Poe made such an argument about people who deny evolution. 'Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is utterly impossible to parody a creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article,' he wrote. This is known as Poe's Law. Anyway, all this is by way of explaining how I – along with others who should know better – briefly fell for a recent jape that didn't quite include a 'winking smiley'. A few weeks ago, ads began appearing on buses for an upcoming feature called Dear Erin. 'She was the Irish goodbye he never forgot,' the tagline read. Peter Coonan , in cloth cap and collarless shirt, writes a letter at a table that also holds a pint of stout and a glass of whiskey. One hand is bloodied. Shamrock spills from a breast pocket. Somehow a rainbow makes it into the collage. A moment's digging unearthed a trailer for the ghastly thing. 'My greatest love? A simple Irish boy from a simple Irish town,' a female American voice trills over glissando strings. Maybe he has now forgotten her? Of course not. Coonan, sitting in his booze-stacked snug, begins a letter with 'Dear Erin' before continuing: 'I've played that night over more times than the Finnegans fought the O'Malleys.' After a bit more shameless blarney, a shadow falls over our hero and we hear, in that same American accent, an uncertain 'Paddy?' READ MORE You might reasonably conclude that only a fierce eejit – no cuter than a donkey's behind – would fall for such a load of aul' cow's muck. But context is all. What was the advertisement doing on the side of a bus? What would Peter Coonan, a Love/Hate alumnus of some distinction, be doing in something that didn't quite exist? This wasn't a post on XformerlyTwitter. There was real money behind it. Moreover, this is surely a case where Poe's Law applies. The deluge of Micksploitation never stops: Far and Away, PS I Love You, Leap Year, Laws of Attraction, Wild Mountain Thyme. No stereotype is too insulting for visiting Americans to exploit. So, for an hour or two, I, and a few other film boffins on the social, could be forgiven (give us a break) for falling into the trap. The parody was a fair one. The clues were right there. What trailer for an apparently imminent title – 'coming this summer' – fails to include a precise release date? Squint and you will see that Paddy's letter is addressed to 'ERIN, AMERICA' – too broad for even the dimmest begorrah aesthetic. I cannot claim to be the first to spot that 'Hugh Forbes', the film's alleged director, shares his name with the character played by Maureen O'Hara's brother in The Quiet Man. We soon all decided that it was a stealth advertisement for something or other. Would Erin soups do such a thing? Not on this occasion. It transpired that the campaign was financed by Epic The Irish Emigration Museum . A longer video, released later, has Coonan break character and snort: 'I'm sorry but who f**king writes this s**t? How are we letting people away with this?' The museum's website , going in big, offers essays on 'the impact of Hollywood stereotypes of Ireland' and 'how to de-stereotype … 'Oirish' films'. This follows (another clue) a campaign from the same organisation that, with predictably hideous results, asked AI to create images of a typical Irishman. Fair enough. The strategy worked. At least one column in at least one national newspaper has now mentioned the prank. The worthwhile question is less why Americans (sometimes still the British) keep doing this – lazy sentimentality? – than why the nation remains so eager to get annoyed about it. It is a little over a year since we all went ballistic over a harmless Netflix title called Irish Wish . Yes, as I then wrote in this place , the Lindsay Lohan vehicle was silly. But was there any need to publish all those 12,000-word treatises on its supposed crimes against the national psyche? [ Planning to hate-watch Lindsay Lohan's Irish Wish? Micksploitation addicts should prepare for disappointment Opens in new window ] There is no easier way of attracting Irish attention than releasing something that shamelessly ploughs the Micksploitation groove. The Epic campaign is correct to bemoan the more egregious tropes. But let us not pretend we wouldn't miss these things if they went away. Baloney such as Wild Mountain Thyme and Irish Wish make us feel noticed. They make us feel righteous. They allow our hearts to beat a little faster. If Americans didn't do this to us we would have to do it to ourselves. As we have just done.
