Oh, Mother
Sir, – I always enjoy Brianna Parkins' musings but her article about her
Mother in today's edition st
ruck a chord. She could win a Pulitzer Prize and be met with 'and is that the dress you're wearing?'
My own dear old Mum, on finding me wearing shorts and a T-shirt sniffed, 'I wouldn't mind but when you do dress up, you look like someone!'.
I've never figured out who that 'someone' is. –Yours, etc,
BRÍD MILLER,
READ MORE
Athlone Road,
Roscommon.
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Rick O'Shea: ‘My wife and I come from very working-class backgrounds, so we think savings are important'
Rick O'Shea is a veteran DJ and radio presenter who has worked with RTÉ since 2001, currently with RTÉ Gold. He is taking part in Dalkey Book Festival, which runs June 12th-15th. Are you a saver or a spender? If you had asked me that question a few years ago, I would have told you I wasn't a saver, but that was only because there was never money left over to save. In recent times that has changed a little. Both my wife and I come from very working-class backgrounds, so a cushion of savings is something we think is important to have. What was the first job you received money for, and how much were you paid? The only job I have ever had is being a radio presenter. My first full-time job was when I was 19, playing late-night love songs on a local radio station. I think I was paid the princely sum of £60 a week. In 1992 it didn't quite pay the rent on the Bray-based bungalow I was living in. Do you shop around for better value? If it's something big, of course. We had our bathroom completely changed recently and there seemed to be endless months of getting quotes from different companies. If it's something like cereal, or groceries, probably not. READ MORE What has been your most extravagant purchase, and how much did it cost? I rarely buy expensive stuff such as technology or flash clothes, so the only thing I'd ever call extravagant is travel. After a year of hard saving, we went to Japan and South Korea in 2015, and it cost somewhere in the region of €10,000. [ 'I recently bought a sofa worth about €10,000 new for €380 on Done Deal' Opens in new window ] What purchase have you made that you consider the best value for money? On the same trip, I bought what I call my Japanese jumper. It's a long cardigan thing that I bought drunkenly late one night in Hiroshima. I've worn it around the house for the last decade, and there are strict instructions that in the event of my untimely death, I am to be buried in it. Is there anything you regret spending money on? Every nonsense purchase I made in my 20s. I built up a stupid credit-card debt that took years to pay off but it taught me never to do the same thing again. I have a credit card now as they're handy when it comes to checking into hotels on holidays, but I never use it otherwise. Do you haggle over prices? Not really. I think you either have the gene for that or you don't. My father is the exact opposite; it's in his blood. The man loves nothing better than a good haggle over €1 or €2 at a car-boot sale for an album he is interested in. Do you invest in shares and/or cryptocurrency? No to both, probably because I view them as gambles that I'm ill-equipped to take. I'm exactly the sort of person who would invest in stocks the day the market crashes or into a pump-and-dump crypto scheme. I'm sure some people do very well at these things, but I'm not wired that way. Do you have a retirement or pension plan? When I started working in RTÉ in 2001, one of the few smart things I have ever done was say yes when I was asked if I wanted to enrol in the pension plan. I'm also the sort of person who never takes it for granted that I'll make it to 65, so who knows, it may all have been a terrible waste of money. [ Rick O'Shea: 'I was never passionate about the idea of being on the radio' Opens in new window ] What was the last thing you bought and was it good value for money? Tickets to the stage version of My Neighbour Totoro, the new Conor McPherson play The Brightening Air , and the upcoming production of Stephen Sondheim's final musical, Here We Are – all in London and all for my birthday. With very rare exceptions, spending money going to shows in London or on Broadway in New York has always been good value over the years, regardless of how much it costs. Have you ever successfully saved up for a relatively big purchase? All the time. Holidays, solar panels and even our car all came from our savings. We don't have loans out for anything at the moment. If we can't afford it, we save for it and wait. Have you ever lost money? No, I don't think I ever have. Are you a gambler and, if so, have you ever had a big win? I have a deep-seated cynicism about big gambling companies. A huge part of their business model is taking advantage of people with addiction issues who can least afford it. I couldn't stomach money I had to work hard for just disappearing down the drain, no matter the small chance of an upside. Remember, the house always wins. What is your best habit when it comes to money? And your worst? I like to think my best habit these days is having the spare money to give to causes online when I see them. I work with a couple of charities, and I'm painfully conscious of how hard fundraising is these days, particularly in a mainly post-cash world, so if I see a cause I care about online, the odds are I'll donate. 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Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Aunts fictional and real matter more to us than they may know
In a curious case of art imitating life (or vice versa), aunts are a big part of my literary and personal life right now. It was nearly three years ago that I first had the idea to write the story of Dorothy's aunt Em from The Wizard of Oz. I wonder if my fascination with exploring Aunt Em's backstory comes from the five fabulous aunties and a significant great-aunt who have been such a big part of my life. My sister and I were particularly close to my mum's three sisters. Family gatherings at Christmas and Easter were held, in rotation, at one of the sister's houses. There was always too much food, plenty of laughter and more than a touch of chaos. Auntie Margaret's homemade scotch eggs became the stuff of legend. Auntie Dallas's trifle got bigger and boozier each year (she was named after an American GI from Dallas who lived in the village during the war – I knew you were wondering). When everyone had stuffed themselves at the buffet tea, the aunties set to washing and drying the dishes and wrapping up leftovers with terrifying efficiency. The pride in hosting was so great that we arrived to my aunt's house in Hull one St Stephen's Day to be told that my uncle had suffered a stroke that morning. She didn't want to cancel, so on the show went! Yorkshire women are made of strong stuff and none more so than four sisters raised by their mother, grandmother and several 'aunties' after their father left them. Relationships with our aunts can be as significant as our relationships with our mothers. In some cases, even more so. Many of us become aunts before we become mothers, learning how to hold and mind a baby, before gladly returning them to their parents. Many women I know who aren't mothers absolutely treasure their role of auntie, finding seemingly endless ways to corrupt their nieces and nephews. And we all have women in our lives who aren't technically our aunties, but who have always been there for us. In Little Women, Aunt March is a rich widow who disapproves of Marmee's parenting, yet ultimately has a lasting influence on two of her great-nieces When my mum died at the age of 48, it was her sisters – our aunts – who stepped up to try to fill the void she'd left behind. I still get birthday and Christmas cards from the two surviving aunties and, yes, there's always a bit of money tucked inside (I'm 54!). In recent months, I've seen my aunties more often as I make regular trips from Kildare back to Yorkshire to visit my elderly dad. Only last month, I spent the night at my auntie's. I slept in my cousin's old bedroom, where I'd once played Scalextric and Subbuteo with him. Core memories unlocked and held tight. READ MORE Several fictional aunties have also stayed with me. From the kind and caring to the strict and unlikeable, literary aunts are often childless, unmarried or widowed. They can lend a delicious sense of unconventionality to a novel. Jane Austen (herself an aunt) gave us several memorable aunts, not least in Pride and Prejudice with Lizzie Bennet's Aunt Gardiner, and Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, a woman with all the worst traits of the stereotypical awful auntie. In David Copperfield , Charles Dickens gives us the marvellous Betsey Trotwood, the classic hardened Victorian widow and yet a woman who cares deeply for her nephew. In Oliver Twist, Rose Maylie, the young woman who cares for young Oliver when he is sick, is later revealed to be his aunt. In Little Women, Aunt March is a rich widow who disapproves of Marmee's parenting, yet ultimately has a lasting influence on two of her great-nieces. Paddington's Aunt Lucy also deserves an honourable mention as the little bear's north star and his connection to home. [ Ripeness by Sarah Moss: A captivating novel about the unwritten codes of Irish social interaction Opens in new window ] Significantly less loveable are Roald Dahl 's terrible Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker in James and the Giant Peach; aunts with no redeeming features at all who are eventually crushed to death by the enormous fruit, much to the delight of young readers. JK Rowling gives Harry Potter a particularly horrible aunt/wicked stepmother in Aunt Petunia, and who wasn't traumatised by Jane Eyre's experiences in the red room, sent there by her Aunt Reed in Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre. Whether fictional women who raised some of our most beloved literary nieces and nephews, or those in our real lives who have helped to raise us, here's to the aunties But one literary aunt who often gets overlooked is L Frank Baum's Aunt Em from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Left behind in Kansas while Dorothy sets off on her adventures along the Yellow Brick Road, it isn't surprising that Em isn't as prominent as other literary aunts, yet she is pivotal in Dorothy's longing to return home. Most of us know Aunt Em from the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, with Clara Blandick playing the role of Dorothy's rather stern and brusque aunt. But it was from Baum's original book that I discovered a tantalising hint of a different woman. 'When Aunt Em came there to live, she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too... She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now.' [ Girl with a Fork in a World of Soup by Rosita Sweetman: A short, lively and fast-paced memoir Opens in new window ] In imagining what had happened to change her so dramatically, I saw Emily as a hopeful young woman - the daughter of Irish immigrants - embarking on a new life as a farmer's wife on the Kansas prairies when tragedy strikes and she takes in her orphaned niece. Aunt Em's love for Dorothy is evident in the final - short - chapter of the book when Dorothy returns home: ''My darling child,' she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses; 'where in the world did you come from?'' Whether fictional women who raised some of our most beloved literary nieces and nephews, or those in our real lives who have helped to raise us, here's to the aunties. You matter more than you'll ever know. Hazel Gaynor is the author of The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter. Her latest book, Before Dorothy, will be published by HarperCollins on June 19th
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘Please turn out in force': Leo Cullen addresses fans after sparse crowd attended Leinster's defeat of Scarlets
Leo Cullen hopes to see a swollen Aviva Stadium on Saturday when Leinster face Glasgow in their United Rugby Championship (URC) semi-final (kick-off 2.45pm). A combination of the bank holiday weekend and the end of school and university terms reduced the stadium to a trickle of fans last Saturday. The official attendance for the quarter-final win over Scarlets was 12,879 – about one-quarter of the stadium's capacity. 'It's on Saturday, please turn out in force,' said Cullen after the 33-21 win. 'We would love to see you here in June and get excited about cheering on the team and all the rest, because the players feed off that energy. 'The players are human beings and they want to do well, they want to feel that support behind them. So, for us it's just about dusting ourselves off now.' 'I haven't even talked to the medics,' he said when asked about any injuries that may have been sustained against Scarlets. 'I know a couple of guys went off during the game, so I don't actually have any updates there. We'll see how guys are and build a plan and just get excited. READ MORE 'It's great to be in a semi-final again, but we take nothing for granted. Again, going back to the semi-final we've already lost [to Northampton] , people were looking ahead. Everyone's looking ahead. Everyone is. Supporters, staff were trying to look too far ahead. So, it was a real harsh lesson for us, but [it's about] making sure we learn from that. So, be excited now.' Cullen explained how pleased he was to get through the match on the right side of the scoreboard. He says knock-out matches are all about winning first and performance second, stressing that the majority of the season is a seeding programme for the knock-out phases. He continued: 'We are pleased to get through to the next round. It's great to be in knock-out rugby. You go through the league and it's a seeding process. Scarlets' Taine Plumtree reacts to a decision during last Saturday's URC quarter-final, which Leinster won to set up a semi-final date with Glasgow. Photo: Dan Sheridan/Inpho 'When you finish top, you'd love to go, 'can you hand us the trophy here?'. But unfortunately, that's not the way this competition is geared up. Some teams that are trying to get into the top eight are almost playing cup rugby to get there, whereas when you have already qualified and are guaranteed top spot, it can make those couple of games leading into the knock-out game a bit tricky because you don't have the jeopardy aspect.' Cullen added that he was pleased with the way Leinster reacted at half-time against Scarlets. Having started the match sharply and scored two early tries through James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park, Scarlets came back into contention and were just one point behind, with the score 15-14 at the break. 'It's a big moment before half-time because we are on their line. If you look at it, there are multiple Scarlets players that are offside, but we play and we don't execute, so there's stuff in our control,' said Cullen. 'And then they go the length of the field. In a perfect world it gets refereed and you have a penalty there. We're eight points clear at that stage, so we'd go into half-time 11 points up. Instead, it's one point and you're like, 'ugh'. 'You have to deal with stuff that's there. Some of it is out of your control. You're seeing lots of games coming down to some moments. We have to do our bit well and just find a way sometimes because it can be unorthodox. 'Overall, we are pleased to get through. We will just build a plan now for next week and recover well. We're into June rugby. The season goes on.'
