Ross O'Carroll-Kelly: ‘My old dear doesn't have the embarrassment gene. It's a South Dublin thing'

Irish Times

10-05-2025

So – yeah, no – the old dear is in the swimming pool when we rock up to the nursing home, doing her – I don't know –
hydrotherapy
exercises? She's dancing to Shania Twain's Man! I Feel Like a Woman! while holding a beach ball and she has singlehandedly cured me of my fetish for women in wet swimwear.
Brett goes, 'Should we, em, come back when she's, em ... '
He means decent.
But I'm like, 'Dude, don't sweat it. She doesn't have the embarrassment gene. It's a South Dublin thing.'
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When she sees us standing there on the pool deck, she narrows her eyes but says nothing. Which isn't the usual confusion. It's just that she has the eyesight of a mole and she'd prefer to see the world as a series of shapes and colours than wear glasses. I once saw her walk up to the Luke Kelly statue on South King Street and go, 'Clean yourself up and get a job – don't be expecting hand-outs from hord-working people like us.'
For the record, the old dear has never worked, hord or otherwise.
I'm there, 'Yeah, no, it's your children – as in, like, Ross and Brett, the brother slash half-brother that you never
told
me about?'
Her face lights up like Heathrow's Northern Runway.
She goes, 'Quick, get me out of here!' and Dalisay, her nurse, arrives to help her out of the pool.
'My boys!' she goes, spilling over the top of her swimming costume like a bottle of podium champagne. 'My boys! My boys! My boys!'
She rushes over to us. She gives Brett a hug and kiss but she has nothing for me. Although I'm not complaining. The poor dude's threads are suddenly drenched in her pool water.
She goes, 'Ross, you've put on weight.'
I'm there, 'Well, you've just cured me of my fetish for women in wet swimwear. So – yeah, no – swings and roundabouts.'
Brett seems a bit taken aback by this back-and-forth. He's standing there with his mouth wide open.
I'm there, 'Dude, this is just the way we
are
with each other?'
She smiles – she has a mouth like a bucket of dropped crockery – and in that moment I suddenly have this overwhelming feeling of love towards her
The old dear smiles – not a pretty sight – and goes, 'And Ross wonders why he's still on his own.'
I'm like, 'Er, I'm
not
on my own? I'm actually
married
?'
She goes, 'Are you?'
'Yeah.'
'Still?'
'Yeah, still.'
'To, em ... ?'
'Sorcha.'
'Sorcha? Was that her name?'
'Yeah.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, I couldn't tell you when her birthday is, or our wedding anniversary, but important details like – you know – her actual focking name have stayed with me for some reason.'
She goes, 'I thought it was something else,' and then randomly – we're talking totally out of left-field – she goes, 'He has a libido like a rhinoceros, Brett. I don't know where he got it from because neither I nor his father was especially highly sexual.'
[
'I most certainly do have an American accent,' I tell my supposed half-brother. 'I'm from south Dublin'
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Brett just nods and smiles patiently. Which he can afford to do. She's not talking about
him
.
'The worst years were his teens,' she goes. 'Fourteen to 16. I'd be sitting in the drawingroom, reading a book, or appreciating a piece of music, and then it would start overhead, the bedsprings going, 'Squeak, squeak, squeak!' and I would say to Charles, 'Does that boy
ever
stop wanking?''
I'm like, 'Seriously? You can remember that but you can't remember my wife's name?'
She goes, 'And then these parents – usually the fathers – would ring the house and say, 'That idiot son of yours has broken my little princess's heart,' and I would say, 'There's an important lesson I've discovered in the course of my life, Mister whatever your focking name is. And it's this. With great beauty comes zero responsibility!''
And I smile at the memory of her defending me, phone in one hand, cucumber gimlet in the other, her second or third of the morning, steeling herself before driving me to school.
She's there, 'Who was that woman you were engaged to, Ross?'
I'm like, 'Sorcha. Like I said, we're married now.'
'Her father was never off the phone,' she goes. 'Awful, awful man. I used to say to him, 'Ross can't help what he is. He just has a very, very high libido, similar to that of a rhinoceros. Which is unusual because neither I nor his father would describe ourselves as sexual animals.''
I turn to Brett and I go, 'See what you missed out on, Dude?'
[
'I hate my children too. Like, how could three kids of mine turn out to be such dicks?'
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And then I suddenly feel bad because I can see this, like, sadness in his eyes and I realise that he would have actually
enjoyed
it. And then, even though I was sure I hated it at the time, I stort to think – typical me, being sometimes deep – did I
genuinely
hate it? Was she that bad a mother or do all of our childhoods become unhappier the older we get?
'Squeak, squeak, squeak,' she goes. 'He was wanking, Brett.'
I'm there, 'Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure he got that detail.'
'Above our heads,' she goes. 'It would go on for hours and hours.'
I'm like, 'Yeah, no, let's skip the episode recap, will we?'
Brett just laughs and goes, 'You two are amazing,' and he seems to genuinely mean it.
And the old dear's there, 'We understand each other, don't we, Ross? Despite never really getting on. You see, I never wanted children, but somehow I ended up having two.'
I notice Brett look away – it's, like,
awks
much? – because I can guess what's going through his head. She gave him away for adoption but she ended up keeping me – although that was only because people kept returning me whenever she left me in the pram outside Thomas's in Foxrock.
I'm there, 'Dude, I honestly don't think you drew the shorter straw.'
[
Most schools fear Hennessy Coghlan-O'Hara like they would a typhoid outbreak
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And then the old dear goes, 'I'm glad you two met. It makes me so happy to see my two boys together.'
She smiles – she has a mouth like a bucket of dropped crockery – and in that moment I suddenly have this overwhelming feeling of love towards her.
And then she goes, 'Brett, I want you to go back to America. I don't want you hanging around here, waiting for me to die.'
Brett's like, 'I'm not going anywhere. I want to spend time with you.'
She goes, 'I'm sure your wife misses you. It's all right for Ross – what with him being a bachelor.'
I'm there, 'Like I said – married for 22 years. Some of them happy.'
And she goes, 'Brett, go home – please. Before Ross ruins your life.'