All posts filed under: Features

Soulmates

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I was 16 and sitting in my art class. The boy I was madly in love with, in the way your 16 year old giddy heart can only love, leaned across the table and asked ‘So do you actually believe in “The One” Caitríona?’ I was delirious. My pupils dilated, I felt faint, churning sick, beautiful and achingly aware of my Hammerite braces. I wanted to run or else make a Bronte leap into his arms. This was it, he feels it, and he knows he is north-west Donegal’s Burton to my Taylor. He wants to take my hand as we step into my lobster-like vision of us sailing through a cotton cream life where we end up in the kind of home where our kids roll their eyes every time we dance around our grey-haired cosy kitchen to ‘Memories are made of this.’ And we laugh and remember when our joints didn’t hurt as much or when we made love like insatiable, insane creatures or wished we had started saving for our pensions earlier. …

In praise of kindness

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I am always heartened by the kindness that occurs every day if you look for it. Despite the ugly and horrific things we read and see, it is happening all around us. Is it the person who puts their change in the charity box at the till? Is it the person who cancels their plans to be with a friend who is having a rough time? Is it the parent who donates their bone marrow to their sick child? Is it the person who brings you a coffee because you are tired, or sad, or just because it’s Saturday? Is it the locals who rally round a family when they have lost someone they love? It is all of these things. It is one of the single most rewarding and healing connections we can make, or have, with another person. Being kind is being vulnerable, it is forgiveness, sacrifice, selflessness and rewarding. And there can never be enough of it. People will always respond to kindness because if you are treated kindly you are instantly …

Florrie-Jane’s Vintage – Donegal woman’s online vintage store success

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Laura Doherty returned home to Ireland in 2014 after a few years in Australia and New Zealand, and like many others, she had no plan for what was next. All she did know was that her collection of vintage clothing had grown so big, even her boyfriend was concerned. ‘I’ve always loved vintage clothing and would have sold bits and pieces over the years on eBay. While I was travelling in Australia and New Zealand I collected so many bits and pieces of vintage I had to ship a lot of it home.’ Laura (28) started her online vintage store ‘Florrie-Janes’ Vintage’ just over a year ago and she is now listed as a boutique with one of the world’s biggest online stores Asos.com and cannot keep up with the demand for her vintage pieces. She operates her store from her home in Dunfanaghy in north west Donegal. Surprisingly, the majority of her clothing goes to the UK and she’s only sold around 10 pieces in Ireland so far. She trained as a hairdresser initially and then worked for a …

Remembering elBulli

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Sunday October 18th  of 2009, table for 2 people at 7.30 p.m. under the name: CIARAN HAYDEN It is almost six years since I had the best dining experience of my life in elBulli restaurant. My friend Ciarán had won the gastronomic lottery and managed to get one of the 8,000 table bookings they offered a year. elBulli was a three Michelin star restaurant with head chef Ferran Adria at the helm until it closed a few years ago. The Godfather of molecular gastronomy’s cuisine was so sought after that the restaurant, on the Catalonian Costa Brava, received over two million requests a year for just 8,000 tables. Naturally, Ciarán and I thought we hadn’t a hope. He rang me a week before Christmas in 2008 to tell me about the table and I’m probably still not over it. Although it was over five years ago, I can still taste every dish. It was one of the most spectacular nights of my life.  Adrià closed the restaurant in 2011 because it was losing so much money. I was …

The Donegal News features The Mc Bride Guide

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I was humbled and honoured by today’s piece about The Mc Bride Guide in The Donegal News. There is something about being from Donegal that only other Donegal people know about it, it’s in your heart wherever you might travel. I’m really looking forward to featuring more of its special people and places on the site. Mo mhíle buíochas, Caitríona x   BY CATHERINE COOK A PASSION for food and the pursuit of the best of what Ireland has to offer has led one Gweedore woman to create a definitive guide to the finer things in life. Caitríona McBride was born in Crolly but grew up in The Rosses. Now she is based in Ballsbridge, Dublin but makes regular visits home. This week she spoke to the Donegal News about how her previous work as a journalist, TV producer and cheese monger have enabled her to launch a new website – The McBride Guide. “I had qualified as a journalist in 2006, having spent four years at DCU. I freelanced for a lot of Irish …