Pig Butchery

Pig Butchery

Back in February I bought two Oxford Sandy & Black piglets to raise for slaughter. Tadhg, a committed vegetarian, had repeatedly asked me not to send them to slaughter. In a moment of grief, I publicly vowed to his siblings that the two pigs would receive a stay...
My Son Tadhg

My Son Tadhg

My dear son, Tadhg, died on 19 June. He went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Below is my speech at his funeral which I hope will go some way to show you what Tadhg was really like. I cannot find the words to express the intense pain and sense of loss that I, and...
Transforming the Yard

Transforming the Yard

The back of the cottage was boring and plain, gravel on the ground, surrounded by a whitewashed wall. The paint shop mixed the red outside wall paint especially for me as normally you can only buy pastel colours for outside walls – what’s wrong with a...
Intruders

Intruders

Not long after moving in I realised we were not alone. There was definite evidence of mice – little droppings everywhere, as well as unused mouse-traps hidden under the sink and in the hot-press (which is in the living room). At night I could hear scratching in...
Starting a new life

Starting a new life

Late November 2020 myself, my son Tadhg, and two dogs left my semi-detached house with a postage stamp sized garden on an estate, near the coast in south Dublin and moved to a cottage on three acres in the middle of Wicklow. The two cats were boarded out as it was...