Seán Moncrieff: A time will come when my daughter won’t hold my hand in public, and that’s okayChildren have the great gift of existing in the present. Even the stretch of summer is an unimaginably long timeSat Jul 16 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: ‘Herself says that everyone should have a housewife’The story of one person’s success is the story of many people giving aid along the waySat Jul 09 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: The nurse told me she’d never seen so much stuff come out of a human headI’d been moving through the world sheathed in aural cotton wool; now I can hear what I had been missingSat Jul 02 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Flying in a plane makes me feel like a kid againMost novelties wane with age, but I’m still mesmerised by air travelSat Jun 25 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: As a father, you have to let go of your expectationsParenting isn’t like baking: you can’t follow the instructions on the packet to make them turn out the way you’d likeSat Jun 18 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: ‘Carbon footprints’ were invented by big oil to make us all feel guilty Sean Moncrieff: The majority of emissions don’t come from individuals but from corporationsSat Jun 11 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Some people adore celebrating their birthdays. I’m not one of themI find the whole business mortifying. I’d fake an asthma attack to get out of itSat Jun 04 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Why do I feel like a failure taking a sick day?Just like my dad, I’m vehemently anti-fussSat May 28 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Is a bank account worth all this hassle?Security questions mean companies know more about us than our close friendsSat May 21 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: We’re raising our daughter in the long tradition of Irish Catholic hypocrisyUnless she objects, we’ll go along with the princess dress and bouncy castleSat May 14 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: There’s nothing more mortifying than tripping in publicThere’s no classy way out of a trip, and it’s even worse if you fallSat May 07 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: It’s pleasurable to stick it to The Man. Even when there is no ManDaily life is so full of rules, it feels good to occasionally break themSat Apr 30 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: How easily we can forget how well we have itA busy weekend made my family ratty, but interviewing Ukrainian refugees was the perspective I neededSat Apr 23 2022 - 00:00
Seán Moncrieff: My son’s girlfriend said she was worried. Her period was lateWhy were we so stupid? she wrote, We are f***ed. He replied: What are you going to do?Sat Apr 16 2022 - 00:00
What’s in a name? Only everything we hope for our kidsSean Moncrieff: Today is National Name Yourself Day. What would you choose?Sat Apr 09 2022 - 06:05
Sean Moncrieff: I foolishly volunteered to help my daughter find a place to liveTo get rented accommodation these days, you have to be quick and boringSat Apr 02 2022 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: There’s one big reason I’m glad to be a manI can’t give birth, thankfully, but I can give the ultimate gift: a bit of helpSat Mar 26 2022 - 00:00
Sean Moncrieff: I have said things that might have got me cancelledThe court of public opinion should remember that we are all less than perfectSat Mar 19 2022 - 06:00
Sean Moncrieff: Pints with Vladimir Putin and Barack ObamaTo be a ‘great’ world leader, you have to be less than human. Killing people is part of your jobSat Mar 12 2022 - 00:00
Seán Moncrieff: I went and got a tattoo – three words along my right forearmThe experience wasn’t what I expected. Like acupuncture, it hurts a bit and your thoughts driftSat Mar 05 2022 - 00:00
Sean Moncrieff: Do we know what’s real any more?The enormity of what is happening under the Covid-19 outbreak is hard to computeSun Apr 12 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I’m sick of hearing this is the new normalThe coronavirus crisis has taught us to see the best in people, even those we don’t likeSat Apr 04 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: TV transports us back to less anxious daysThe comfort is often tinged with nostalgia for a world that doesn’t exist any moreSat Mar 28 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I have a profound love of bread – the smell, the taste, the textureFor all its emotional and symbolic charge, we don’t seem to value breadSat Mar 14 2020 - 06:01
Do you deny climate change? It's time to grow upAntarctica temperatures have hit a record high and a piece of ice the size of Malta just broke off. These are factsSat Mar 07 2020 - 06:01
The simplest message tends to win elections. Not policy, but marketingSeán Moncrieff: Is democracy doomed? Only if we want it to beSat Feb 29 2020 - 06:01
Could a product from Lidl or Aldi change your life?Seán Moncrieff: An encounter in the middle aisle has me wondering, should I do more chain-sawing?Sat Feb 22 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I prefer complex Star Trek to cartoonish Star WarsThe most striking difference is Star Trek has always been explicitly politicalSat Feb 15 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I’ll be voting today. But for my kids, not for meI grew up in a world where it was possible to have a job for life, a pension, to buy a home; a world that wasn’t starting to catch fireSat Feb 08 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Why Daniel O’Donnell should rule us allThis is the best idea you’ll hear during the entire election campaignSat Feb 01 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: It’s that time of the year when parents commit school fraudEveryone wants their child to get into the ‘good’ school, even if that means using a false addressSat Jan 25 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Growing up is all about knowing when to say ‘f**k’We’re not teaching Daughter Number Four not to swear. We’re hoping she’ll learn when it is and isn’t appropriateSat Jan 18 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Like Brad Pitt, I have a genetic advantage. I’m skinnyI’m asked how much I run or who my yoga teacher is, but the truth is, I’m just luckySat Jan 11 2020 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: My new year’s resolution is to prepare for my deathI’ve always known that I’d like to be buried, and I’d also like ice cream at my funeralSat Jan 04 2020 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Your family or mine? Christmas puts relationships to the testIf your relationship survives, you will spend every Christmas driving between housesSat Dec 21 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I met a friend 40 years on, in strange circumstancesDecades after we played on building sites, I met Frank again. His story was an inspirationSat Dec 14 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Can people change? Yes. No. MaybeIf you’re 50, can you honestly say you’re the same person you were at 30?Sat Dec 07 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: My four-year-old daughter doesn’t understand televisionWhen they are older, our kids may laugh about all the crap they used to watch onlineSat Nov 30 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Not OK boomer. It’s time to apologise to millennialsMillennials and Generation Z are inheriting a world we have permanently damagedSun Nov 24 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: The planet is cooking for all of us, no matter our politicsWhy is climate change pompously owned by the left and dismissed by the right?Sat Nov 16 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: I’m switching to another phone. My daughter is outragedDespite what they are desperate to tell you, phones are pretty much all the sameSat Nov 09 2019 - 06:01
Seán Moncrieff: Is there such thing as the perfect present?We want or need far less than the amount of birthdays or Christmases we live throughSat Nov 02 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: What does your house say about you?We invest so much energy into what our homes look like, in search of validation when the friends call in and tell us how lovely it isSat Jul 27 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: My daughter looks awful in picturesIn real-life she resembles Shirley Temple. In the picture she’s more like Mattress MickSun Jul 21 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: The news is always grim, but it’s still necessary readingIncreasingly, I don’t want to know the injustice in the world; I also don’t want not to knowSat Jul 13 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Stop saying Perfect. Nothing is PerfectWhy do we say things are ‘perfect’ when they clearly aren’t?Sat Jul 06 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: No matter how old they get, my kids will always be my babiesPart of the job of being a parent is letting them go. But I still wish it lasted a little longerSat Jun 29 2019 - 06:02
Seán Moncrieff: Judging others about their money is a thrillThere’s something delightfully righteous about tut-tutting over the money habits of othersSat Jun 15 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: Dublin is lovely. Why can’t we say that?The bad things about Dublin are true. As are the good things. It’s the essence of city lifeSat Jun 08 2019 - 06:00
Seán Moncrieff: How many people actually like their job?Daughter number two thinks she might do law but knows how risky any career choice isSat Jun 01 2019 - 06:00
