Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.

Irish people marry late, as a rule. We have that potato-famine DNA from the old country, that mentality where you don't give birth to anything until you have the potatoes all stored up to feed it. My ancestors were all shepherds who got married in their thirties and then stayed together for life, who had long and happy marriages, no doubt because they were already deaf. My grandparents courted for nine years before they married in 1933.

I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.