Róisín Ingle

1 day ago | irishtimes.com | Róisín Ingle

George Bernard Shaw wrote a lot of letters in his lifetime. Many of them were short, grumpy notes turning down invitations for social events or speaking gigs or gala dinners. My favourite narky “no thank you” letter of his, and there are lots to choose from, was written after the Pygmalion writer was invited to address a branch of the Labour Party in Britain. “It would be easier and pleasanter to drown myself,” was his one sentence reply in that 1922 letter.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Róisín Ingle

The clocks went forward. The sun came out. All the emails that landed in my inbox began in the same fashion. “Hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week.”We lifted the covers off Fintan’s Furniture, the outdoor furniture our friend (Fintan) gave us as a wedding gift. It had been undercover for months but then the sun came out and it stayed out. Everything felt different. Something in the air. Newness. Possibility. Pollen? I was very much enjoying the sunshine this week.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Róisín Ingle

Anne-Marie Duff has the best laugh – loud, full bodied and infectious. She’s sitting in her kitchen in London in front of a white fridge freezer festooned with the usual domestic ephemera, wearing a pretty black top accessorised with fine gold jewellery. She’s talking, on the video call, about how her Catholicism shaped her growing up, as she did, in Thatcher’s Britain, the daughter of Irish parents on a council estate in southwest London.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Róisín Ingle

At the Charlemont Community Resource Centre in Dublin two mothers were waiting at reception for their children to come out of gymnastics class. They were chatting about the nutritional value of a spice bag versus a stir fry. I stood there doing some admin on my laptop and offered my take on turkey burgers. Tastier when marinated, we all agreed. It had been quite a day. The digital world is unavoidable but sometimes we are separated from it involuntarily, which is to say I had lost my phone again.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Róisín Ingle

Paul Brady is sitting in his home studio, showing me the scrapbooks that his mother, Mollie, faithfully kept from the beginning of his six-decade musical career. The studio is set in the beautifully landscaped garden of his home in south Co Dublin, a creative haven for the songwriter from the Border town of Strabane, in Co Tyrone. Brady, who will turn 78 in May, recently celebrated 50 years of marriage to his wife, Mary, a Dubliner. They’re facing the usual dilemmas of a couple their age.