Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

So – yeah, no – I’m in the cor with the boys, driving home from The Bridge 1859 after watching The Ster make shit of Clermont Auvergne, when the usual rugby singsong storts up.

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Ronan is smoking one of his famous rollies in the doorway of the Museum of the Irish Gangster when he sees me coming. “Rosser!” he goes. “The fook are you doing on Capel Street dressed like that? Did you take a wrong turden cubbing ourra Chapter One again?”

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It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. Sorcha goes, “You’re being ridiculous, Ross.” I’m there, “Oh, I’m being ridiculous, am I? My son gives up rugby to play the port of Sam Cormichael in Mamma Mia! and I’m the one being ridiculous!”

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I’m like, “Westlife?” And I say it like that as well. I’m there, “Why are you going to see Westlife? You always said–” Honor goes, “No, I didn’t. I actually like Westlife?” and she’s telling me to – yeah, no – shut the fock up with her eyes.

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The old man tells Hennessy that he has every faith in him. Hennessy’s like, “Wait a minute, what?” Yeah, no, we’re sitting in the District Court in Bray, waiting for Bernie’s case to be called.

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“So, anyway, I tee’d off,” the old man goes, loving the sound of his own voice, “and of course I managed to slice the bloody-well ball and, well, naturally enough, it ended up in the lake!”

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JP looks well – even though I don’t know what to call him any more? I’m like, “So how are things – I don’t know – Father?” He actually laughs at that? He’s there, “Ross, you don’t have to call me Father.” I’m like, “What do I call you then?” because it’s my first time seeing the dude since he finished his studies to become an actual priest.

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I think I’m on the record as saying that being a parent is one of those things that I just happen to be very, very good at without having to put any actual effort into it. Even allowing for that, at the end of a long, hot summer, just like the rest of you, I’m absolutely sick of the sight of my children and I’m glad they’re now someone else’s problem until the end of October. 

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Hennessy is grinning like a dog trying to pass a laundry ball through its urinary tract. Yeah, no, for five days now, me and Bernie from Bray of all places have been – in fairness – texting each other, and the dude is reading through the exchanges, some of which are pretty, it might be a word, explicit?

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Hennessy actually laughs when he sees me sitting at the bor with a pint of the old Dutch medicine in front of me. He’s like, “What the hell are you doing here?”

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