Ross O'Carroll-Kelly The Irish Times

So – yeah, no – I’m in Cinnamon in Monkstown, getting all excited about Sixmas, which is only, like, two weeks away now. I’m writing out my storting 15 for the match against Wales into the famous Big Book when I notice a woman staring at me over the top of her Watermelon Shhuga.
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They stagger out onto the pitch in two or three different huddles, their orms folded against the cold of a horrible January morning.
I’m there, “Welcome back, ladies! Hope you had a good Christmas!” and they’re all, like, hating on me for my – yeah, no – cheeriness?

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No less a judge than the great Jerry Flannery once described me as “one of Ireland’s greatest thinkers” – and even though it was in the course of a Charity Roast in the Sin Bin in Limerick, I think his point still stands...
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The old dear is drinking a Baileys with her dental plate out and I don’t think I’ll ever have another amorous thought in my life. The old man raises his brandy glass to me and goes, “Merry Christmas, Ross.”
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So I’m standing at the trough in The Queens in Dalkey, having a much-needed slash, when I hear a voice beside me go, “Is that the famous Ross O’Carroll-Kelly I see?”
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The Castlerock College Christmas Fete has always been a massive event in the O’Carroll-Kelly social calendar.
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