Stories don’t come much truer than Peggy’s. We sit down with a woman who grew up fast as the eldest daughter in a family of ten, crossed Dublin’s invisible river from southside to northside, and carried both duty and defiance in the same pair of hands. She takes us from coal cupboards and convent corridors to maxis on the dancefloor, from ledgers at Easons to late nights at the Blind Beggar, where being Irish in the East End during the Troubles could turn a room in an instant.

What stays with you are the contrasts. Peggy is deeply spiritual but clear-eyed about church failings. She’s quick with a laugh yet unflinching as she recounts her brother George’s disappearance and the year-late discovery of his death by suicide. The most haunting scene unfolds on a crowded London platform: a young man rolling up his trouser legs, a city’s numbness, and an aspiring priest who climbs down to hold a stranger’s hand and give last rites—an act that redirects his own life toward service. From that terrible hour, Peggy writes One Hour in Time, a piece that RTE picks up, bringing her back to an unmarked grave and a measure of closure she didn’t expect.

Threaded through is a love story that arrives sideways. Barry shows up with quiet courage—making tea when there are no words and taking two weeks off work to help her mother navigate hospitals, records, and locked doors. Peggy also revisits her complicated bond with her father, choosing forgiveness without forgetting, and the small, comic legends that make a life: graveyard angels, counterfeit coins, and the ironclad vow never to press a man’s shirt again.

If you value memoirs that hold humour and heartbreak in the same breath, this conversation will sit with you. Follow the journey for its honesty; stay for the grace Peggy extends to herself and others. Listen, share with someone who needs its gentleness, and if it moved you, subscribe and leave a review—what moment will you carry with you?

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