The key to a happy Christmas? Care a little less about getting it perfectSeán Moncrieff: It’s Christmas Eve. Forget about all the things you haven’t done. Put your feet up and soak it all inSat Dec 24 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Spare a thought for the stingy person in your life this ChristmasGiving is always better than receiving, unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t get what sharing is forSat Dec 17 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: It’s office Christmas party time, and we’re all a bundle of nervesYou start to wonder if you shouldn’t go, or make an appearance and go home early. Enjoying yourself is exhaustingSat Dec 10 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: For a radio presenter, I’m rubbish at small talkSeán Moncrieff: Sometimes, it’s not that important what you are talking about. Just that you are talking at all.Sat Dec 03 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: My wife showed everyone her new tattoo – everyone except her motherThe roles assigned to us through our family structures – parent, child, sibling – are never completely escapableSat Nov 26 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: This World Cup raises uncomfortable questions for fansFans will be watching their beloved sport take place in stadiums constructed from the blood of other peopleSat Nov 19 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Breaking up with your TV provider is hard to doI got sarky with the call centre guy, but he was only doing his jobSat Nov 12 2022 - 05:00
The most disturbing aspect of Twitter? Its consistent ability to reveal people at their absolute worstSeán Moncrieff: The social media platform is designed to promote gut reactions in the shortest number of charactersSat Nov 05 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Are young people really so offended by emojis in the workplace? Give them some creditStories revealing the latest alleged Gen Z thin-skinned foible undermine not just that generation, but everything they are concerned aboutSat Oct 29 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: When inexplicable tragedy occurs, we all feel itGod or not, nature has made us a community animal, hard-wired for sympathy, to care for each otherSat Oct 22 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: There’s too much of everything. And it’s making us unhappyHave we finally reached the point where our eyes are bigger than our bellies?Sat Oct 15 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: She fully expressed her architectural vision – two rugs suspended across the hallwayDaughter Number Four’s urge to create a pretend home within the perfectly good home she has is intriguingSat Oct 08 2022 - 05:00
Sean Moncrieff: The Hook Head lighthouse and a troublesome outside broadcastSo much of the way we live is dependent on systems that we are, mostly, barely aware ofSat Oct 01 2022 - 04:30
Seán Moncrieff: What is ‘Irishness’? The answer is increasingly and wonderfully complexThere’s a magically intangible quality to Irishness that rubs off on people and becomes part of themSat Sept 24 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: My drinking is under control now, but it is a constant effortThe Friday bottle of wine spread to other nights. The days I didn’t drink became the exceptionSat Sept 17 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Granddaughter Number One has arrived. Her hobbies include sleeping and poopingI’m taken with a sense of how there’s a new generation of my family stretching into the future. The wheel of life and death and love endlessly refreshing itselfSat Sept 10 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Our six-year-old is asking the Santa Question. Can we keep the magic alive for one more year? It’s only 113 days to Christmas. And I bet I’m not the first to mention itSat Sept 03 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: I’m more boring in person than some people expectA few can’t hide their disappointment that I am not the Mad Crack person they wanted me to beSat Aug 27 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Why are so many men content to be dressed by their partners? I have met many women who insist on choosing clothes for their partners. It’s infantilising and weirdSat Aug 20 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: A car park of trolleys, people screaming ... just another Friday in A&E Seán Moncrieff: It’s only when you’ve spent a night in A&E that you realise what a wreck our health system isSat Aug 13 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: A young man stood in front of me. He wanted to have a fightSome people get drunk and sing, or start crying. Others beat people upSat Aug 06 2022 - 05:00
Seán Moncrieff: Everything went wrong. But it wasn’t so badLooking at the bigger picture can get us through the days when nothing seems to go to planSat Jul 30 2022 - 05:41
Seán Moncrieff: Our dog’s frantic barking is irritating on a physical levelWill decking-inflicted mild injuries bring pet and owner closer together?Sat Jul 23 2022 - 06:00
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
