A personal blog of ideas, discoveries and perspectives.
My grandmother’s grandmother died on this day 129 years ago. Sarah (sometimes known as Sally) married a man named James Callinan of Peterswell Co. Galway in about 1847, during horrors of the Great Famine. Despite those hardships, Sally survived and had many children. Obviously I never met her but I share her DNA. It’s staggering …
I have been using sign language all my life. I grew up in a 'deaf family', where both my parents are deaf. They have been signing at me since I was a newborn and I have been signing back for longer than I have been talking. By the time I started school, I was bi-lingual, …
I’m delighted to be once again taking part in Walk In My Shoes FM, the pop-up radio station, to mark World Mental Health Day. The station comes on air tomorrow and broadcasts all week (7-11 October 2019) . Walk in My Shoes works to promote positive mental health, to tackle mental health stigma and change …
The Pyramids of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and one of the most recognisable human structures on the planet, are located just outside Cairo. They rise impossibly from the sands of the Sahara, where there have stood for over 4500 years. These massive structures seem beyond the capabilities or requirements …
The wealthy and the privileged obsess on their legacy. Not content with winning the lottery of life, they want to win against history; a history that conspires with death, that ‘great leveller’, to render everyone equally forgotten. They do great deeds of charity and philanthropy that somehow always require acknowledgment by award, statue or a …
My Side of the Matter 