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Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
When Ronan was 10, I said, ‘I need to have the chat with you about sex.’ And he said, ‘What are you wanting to know, Rosser?’
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The Broken Orms is absolutely packed to the rafters for the engagement porty of Tina, the mother of my firstborn, to Tom, her fireman boyfriend, who famously played 300 matches in the All Ireland League, albeit for Bornhall.
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I’m there to Honor, ‘You’ve never been good at school. I always thought you took after me’
06:11|“The fock is this?” I go. Yeah, no, I’m doing the morning school run, crawling up Trees Road in a procession of all-terrain vehicles, like an invading ormy, when Honor hands me a piece of paper. She goes, “It’s, like, my results – from, like, my mocks?‘I haven’t come here today to listen to you badmouth my mother – the axe-faced old trout'
06:25|Conor Hession sits on the terrace, nursing a vodka lorge enough to put a grizzly bear to sleep. He’s like, “She was quite the most conniving, the most calculating, the most manipulative person I’ve ever met. And completely devoid of human feeling, of course.”‘My old dear said you had a kid together. Well, I’m its half-brother. Or half-sister if it’s a girl’
06:19|Sorcha rings me and there’s an air of, like, panic in her voice? She goes, “Ross, where are you?” Yeah, no, we’re in Portugal for midterm – along with the rest of south Dublin – and I’m on the road from Quinta do Lago to Vilamoura. Although I don’t tell her that.‘Only cheat with someone who’s married. It’s the principle of mutually assured destruction’
06:16|Sorcha goes, “This is exciting, isn’t it, Ross?” because – yeah, no – we’re having dinner in Iguazu, a new hipster restaurant on Camden Street, where there’s no actual menu and an algorithm chooses what you’re going to eat based on the answers you provide to 10 questions when you’re booking.‘I strip down to my boxers. I can always drive home commando. Wouldn’t be the first time’
06:06|Dalisay says she’s in the pool. I’m like, “The pool?” “Yes,” she goes. “Your mother likes to swim every morning. Would you like to see her?” I’m there, “In a way, no? But I suppose that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? So I suppose – yeah, no – lead the way.” I walk with her from the old dear’s private ward to the actual gym.The dude goes, ‘The famous Rosser, what?’ looking me over like I’m a buffet item gone cold
06:02|So – yeah, no – I’m in Dunnes Stores in, like, the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, grabbing a few bits for Sorcha, who’s making a special dinner tonight. I dump my items on the checkout belt and make a mental note to find out if it’s her birthday, or our wedding anniversary, when all of a sudden I hear an old woman’s voice go, “Mind if I just go ahead of you there, son?”‘You wouldn’t last one day as a girl,’ Honor tells me
06:03|Honor walks through the arrivals gate with a face as long as a wet weekend in Knock and I take it as read that the week in St Moritz was a bit of a let-down?‘You’re both loved and feared, Honor – and I’m so proud’
06:27|It would be an understatement to say that Honor was never the most popular girl growing up. As a matter of fact, on the very rare occasions when she was invited to a porty, Sorcha used to sew cubes of pancetta into the hem of her dress so that at least the family’s dog would play with her.