As I write, my wife is in the kitchen chopping vegetables, while somehow keeping our six-month-old baby daughter happy. The older two sit each side of me on the sofa, where I balance my laptop, homework, crayons and a colouring book. The annual St Valentine’s Day extravaganza is passed, with its notions that love is shown…
Category: Family & Faith
A DIY bird feeder for your garden
Snowdrops, daffodils, St Brigid crosses and birdsong are all key symbols of spring. With winter almost gone, you will see and hear more birds gathering in gardens. Food can be scarce for birds even at this time of the year so welcome birds into your garden by placing a bird feeder in the centre. You…
Delicious recipes for Pancake Tuesday
Lent is fast approaching which also means it’s time to get the pans out for Pancake Tuesday! Lent is about sacrificing luxuries to show our devotion to God, and Pancake Tuesday – or Shrove Tuesday – serves as a final day of indulging in goodies before 40 days of fasting. The name Shrove Tuesday comes…
Lent is an opportunity to rebalance our lives
Faith in the Family
Life’s little things
One Saturday morning, I resolved to help tidy my son’s bedroom – big mistake. Piled upon his bed I found: 12 ragged and much loved cuddly toys or ‘pets’ as he likes to call them, one toy samurai sword, three blankets, two odd socks, one cat shaped key chain, a bottle of water, one pocket…
Better for teens to be young, free and single
A parent’s perspective
Time for new attitudes towards alcohol
Healthy Living with Cathal Barry
Bunting for St Valentine’s Day
Any occasion is made special with the addition of decorative bunting. Typically, bunting is shaped like triangles but different holidays inspire different shaped bunting such as Christmas trees, shamrocks, Easter eggs or, with St Valentine’s Day just around the corner, hearts. Heart bunting is not just for St Valentine’s Day. Make this garland for the…
Dad’s Diary
It is a strange thing to realise that you have become a sort of slave – albeit a fairly happy one, at least when you are tucking your peacefully slumbering little masters in at night. Perhaps the term, “indentured servant” is more accurate, because there is the prospect of eventual freedom, allegedly. With each new…
A cake to melt your Valentine’s heart
Sweet Treats

Erin Fox
Bairbre Cahill
Maria Byrne
Cathal Barry