Mum believed in a pretty laid back approach to parenting. I can’t remember her ever really giving out much. Inevitably, I was duty bound by my adolescence to push the boundaries on occasion and have to be told off. Mum used the ‘dissapointment’ card to great effect. She would never say she was angry or annoyed …just disappointed. It was always the worst thing to hear. I would have way preferred an over-reactive barrage of words about what I’d done wrong, that I could have shrugged off as parental misunderstandings of Generation X!
If I’d really misbehaved (eg. house party) I’d be sure to receive a crushing ‘I don’t know when I can trust you again’ from Mum. The beauty of this emotional blackmail was that there was nothing that you could retort even half effectively with. I remember just having to skulk back into my bedrooms feeling deflated. Mum 1 : Me 0
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One of the things that most impressed me about my Mum was her strength of character. Mum faced a lot of adversity in her life but always maintained a strong family unit for my siblings and I. It was after my Mum finally separated from my Dad that her true character was allowed to shine. Mum found her independent spirit and established a life in Galway.
Growing up I often got frustrated with Mum wondering why she wasn’t facing up to her situation and sorting it out immediately. It was only as an adult that I began to understand that it takes time to come to terms with major change, even if you are going to be the one to instigate it.
My Mum was a warrior Mum.
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One of my Mum’s favourite sayings when someone did something nice was ‘he’s not a bad old stick afterall’. It always made me smile. I’ve now adopted it as my own!
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As all of us grew up we all lived abroad for a while. One of my brothers spent 10 years in the States. Mum used to take visits out to see him on a regular basis.
My brother was like all of us, a chocolate fanatic (Mum did her best to encourage this in all her children.) On heading to the states instead of the empty cases to fill with clothes, as is the custom with many an Irish US bound traveller, Mum would instead have bags choc-a-block with a selection of Cadbury’s that any sweetshop would’ve been proud of! I remember Mum packing , her excitement levels rising at the thoughts of my brother opening up this teasure trove of a chocolate feast.
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We were all avid fans of Top of the Pops in our house, we’d watch it on a weekly basis and give our opinions as to which bands we liked and disliked. Mum used to come in and say ‘they’ll never take off’ and it would always be about some huge band that was all over the place. I remember her using her crystal ball like knowledge to discount The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and a load of other bands that were already huge successes.
Of course Mum probably had heard of these bands at some stage but just liked the sound of collective groans from her children of an evening!
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