What is single pot still whiskey? Is it the past, is it the future? Is it a uniquely Irish style of whiskey, an Irish Irish whiskey, a category within the category? Is it our secret weapon, or is it a marketing trick? Is it a common style, found around the world, a simple mixed mash […]
Recent Posts
Pearse Lyons
After the passing of Dr Pearse Lyons of Alltech a year ago, I wrote this tribute piece for FFT.ie: Dr Thomas Pearse Lyons was a man who looked beyond the surface. Many business empires are built on marketing and spin, but Dr Lyons, a consummate scientist, spent his career looking deeper into animal nutrition, brewing […]
Indo col 96
Life in the media isn’t all a joyless grind of deadlines, changing the ribbon on your typewriter, and checking under your car for explosives – sometimes even part-timers like me get invited to the odd event. So it was that I found myself at a drinks launch, with several other, younger, more successful and attractive […]
Indo col 95
I live in fear of taking down the Euromillions. Upon hearing the 175 million was won in Ireland, I had a moment of terror where I tried to remember if I had done it or not. What if I had won the lot? What then? What would become of us? I often joke with my […]
Indo col 94
I have some terrible, distressing news – I have succumbed to Cool Dad Syndrome. It hit me out of the blue, as I had only gotten over a severe bout of Smug Dad Syndrome, which I caught after I brought my kids to both an art gallery and a bookshop within the same 24-hour period. […]
Indo col 93
Please allow me to introduce you to the world of BearBnB. My first encounter with this phenomenon was when my daughter was in creche, and one day she came home with a teddy bear and a copybook coated in sparkles. Teddy, she announced, was going to be our guest for the week, but unlike most […]
Indo col 92
Friends, please join me now with heads bowed in a solemn moment’s silence as we prepare to say farewell to my medical card. Obtained back in 2015 when I was briefly unemployed, I had forgotten I had it until it fell out of my wallet last week, giving me a moment to pause and regret […]
Indo col 91
Friends, please join me now with heads bowed in a solemn moment’s silence as we prepare to say farewell to my medical card. Obtained back in 2015 when I was briefly unemployed, I had forgotten I had it until it fell out of my wallet last week, giving me a moment to pause and regret […]
Indo col 90
To exempt or not to exempt, sin e an question. Our middle son’s struggles with language development mean that he is eligible for an exemption from Irish, prompting much soul searching and keening in our house. What would our ancestors say, are we betraying all they fought and died for by not forcing our son […]
Indo col 89
The Young Scientist exhibition is a wonderful event on our nation’s calendar. It’s a time when we come together to marvel at the brilliance of the next generation, feel shame at our own intellectual failings, and then reassure ourselves that whoever won had biochemists for parents, grew up in a lab and had a mind […]
Indo col 88
April is the cruellest month, TS Eliot wrote in The Wasteland, and he was almost right except he was out by four months, as January is the true bastard of the calendar here in the northern hemisphere. The weather starts to get properly cold, the stores of Vitamin D run out, and, worst of all, […]
Indo col 86
How are you getting on with the new year’s resolutions? Sticking with them? It’s only been a matter of hours, but sher look just try your best, and remember that the most important thing is not your good intentions, but rather that you didn’t actually tell anyone about your big plan to give up the […]
Indo col 85
A December wedding is a bad idea. There are some benefits to it – most of the guests decline the invite as it is an opportune time of year for excuses; the weather is reliably poor; and you feel less weird about being hammered at 5pm when it’s dark. Generally though, it is a poor […]
Indo col 84
There are many joyous moments in the life of a parent – children’s allowance day, the day they can mow a lawn unattended, or when literally anyone offers to take them off your hands for a few hours. But nothing really compares to the joy of dropping your eldest child to their first job. We […]
Indo col 83
Ballymaloe is a special place. It’s like Knock, where any trip becomes a sacred pilgrimage to worship at the altar of food, where we go to think about what we eat, to feel a deeper connection to the land. Or, in my case, where you bring your kids so you can create the illusion that […]
Indo col 82
The news of Stan Lee’s passing hit us hard. You would think that given his age – 95 years young – we would have seen it coming, but – plot twist – we did not. Much like one of the characters in the universe he helped create, he seemed invincible. Ever since the Marvel franchise […]