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Beauty Pick of the Day

Pamela Kilcoyne — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:07:02 +0000

Beauty Pick of the Day

Pamela Kilcoyne — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:58:24 +0000

Daisy Boutique 1st Birthday!

Pamela Kilcoyne — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:27:44 +0000

Daisy Boutique celebrated its first birthday with the launch of its new ‘Designer Desirables’ Dress Hire service. Photo: Brian Harding.

Beauty Pick of the Day

Pamela Kilcoyne — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:01:22 +0000

Finding Mr Right

Pamela Kilcoyne — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:01:16 +0000

Mags Treanor investigates the art of dating in the 21st century.

They say that the best place to meet your future partner is at college. Considering that not everybody goes to college, I’m not sure I can agree. Besides, when I

think back to my own college days, I was way too romantic and idealistic to even remotely fall in love with anyone who might have had a scrap of sense with regard to the harsh ways of the real world for which we would both be heading. There was romance alright, mostly short lived. There was always someone on the scene. There were even times that I woke up beside my new love, even if I could have sworn I’d gone home from the party on my own.

So it’s true that you meet people at college, but what about ‘the one’, the person who you want to share your life with? It seems that these days the ballroom of romance is no more. Gone are the days of men and women lined up along different walls of the dance floor waiting for the slow set. Nowadays we source our partners the same way we do our shopping – online and with a checklist. There was a time that it was surrounded with all sorts of taboos. Meeting somebody online was compared to the personal ads, and lets face it, even if nobody said it out loud, we all believed that the personals were for people who just couldn’t find a partner no matter how many dances they went to.

But it’s not really like that, is it? It probably never was. From the start, I’ve always found online dating to be a bit similar to shopping online. Not that I planned to buy a catalogue husband or anything. I’d love to have done something like that but I just wouldn’t have had the money to get exactly what I was looking for. No, it was just the idea of more choice, and being able to plan and pick out exactly what I wanted, rather than being faced with a tiny selection from what was on offer locally. So I started doing online dating before it was even en Vogue. I had recently split up from my first husband (well, ok, my only husband, but first husband sounds a bit sexier than ex-husband). So I wanted an adventure, something to distract me, and I wanted to feel young again. My advert read something like this:
Bitter and twisted, cantankerous, middle-aged obese woman seeks young well-hung Adonis of about 20with plenty of experience please. One night only.

I was, of course, not exactly honest. Although my description of myself was, indeed, fairly apt, what I really wanted was distraction rather than a one night stand. And distraction I got. Within half a day I had received over one hundred offers. By the end of the week my inbox was full. I did have the decency to read them all, but only replied to about three. A few weeks and a bit of banter later I found myself meeting a young fella in a black shirt, not bad looking and a Northern accent to die for. I decided that this was the business. Better to be old and ugly looking at young and sexy than vice versa, but it didn’t seem to bother the young fella so we ended up going for the one night only with breakfast thrown in.

Needless to say there were enough people to tell me how foolish all of this carry on had been and how even serial killers can wear black shirts and speak with Northern accents. I know they had my best intentions in mind, but then again, so did my one night stand and serial killers have been known to lurk around dance halls asking girls out for the slow set. My point, though, is that when you search for love online you are more likely to find a better match, because as I mentioned earlier, you can have a checklist and tick all the boxes in advance.

It’s also true that you can’t believe what you read. Even my own self-description was a tad untrue. You see I may be twisted, but I’m not really bitter, and I’m not all that cantankerous either come to think of it.

A few years after my online adventure, my brother met a woman through an online dating agency. The world of online love had become a lot more fashionable and seemed to be the norm at this stage. My brother and I being polar opposites, I can only guess that his online profile went something like this:
Serious academic historian, lots of college degrees and stuff like that. Vegetarian. Into yoga, politics and classical music. Would like to meet an academic woman in sensible shoes. No make up please.

In fairness, she has some great shoes and they were married eleven months after their first date. And come to think of it, he was definitely never going to meet her tripping over her heels while throwing up outside the pub at two o’clock in the morning, nor was either of them ever going to be found on the dance floor. So I’m right: online is the way to go.

Or is it? A few years ago I met my current partner when we were both on a parent’s association committee together. All that fundraising and bag packing and minute taking was enough to awaken passion between two second- time-rounders. It proves my counter argument, which is that you will only find love if you are not looking for it. But if it crashes into your life and you can fit it in to a schedule you thought was full it’s even better. There is really nothing sexier than grabbing time out between the school run and peeling the potatoes.

So if you are still wondering where the love of your life might be hanging out, my advice is this: join an online dating forum and write a profile of not who you are, but rather, who you would like to be (this is because if you keep telling yourself that you are who you want to be, you will turn into that person eventually). At the same time, tell yourself that you don’t really have the time or the inclination to be falling in love right now. Then join a committee. You’ll be liaised within weeks.

The bottom line when it comes to love though is that it doesn’t really matter where or when or how you meet your beloved. It only matters that it works and that you pretend to everyone else that you met in some exotic romantic place where you were swept off your feet. You then go on to live happily ever after.
s my elderly mother, who tends to get her words confused these days, recently commented:
I really don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that my son met his wife on the microwave!’

Wedding Forum at the Radisson Blu hotel & Spa, Galway

Pamela Kilcoyne — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:45:29 +0000

Photographer: Emily Quinn

Beauty Pick of the Day

Pamela Kilcoyne — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:48:40 +0000

Bradley Motor Works 40 Year Celebration

Pamela Kilcoyne — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:19:59 +0000

Family business Bradley Motor Works recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. The well-known car dealership, originally founded by Bob Bradley in 1971, has successfully traded over four decades. Joining the family on the day of celebrations was Deputy Mayor of Galway City, Councillor Tom Costello, as well as many representatives of Galway’s business community.

Beauty Pick of the Day

Pamela Kilcoyne — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:45:43 +0000

How do you love?

Pamela Kilcoyne — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:09:46 +0000

Once upon a time a handsome Chef fell in love with a radiant young Irish girl. This is their story… Words and photography by Móna Wise

I am that lucky girl. I fell in love with the Chef. A man that was not meant for me, for so many reasons, yet the one I wanted to marry from the second I laid eyes on him. I was too young to believe in love at first sight and way too young to know what it would be like to wait and wonder if Mr Right (or Mr Wrong) would come along and rock my world. But there he stood, ponytailed hair tucked under his navy-blue French beret, wearing denim dungarees and a Chez Piggy t-shirt, and a smile that still melts my heart sixteen years later.

He had no interest in me. He was focused and professional; we were working together, so it was all work and no play. I, on the other hand, was relentless. I knew, from the minute I had laid eyes on him, that he was meant for me. I started signing my name ‘Mrs Wise’ in my head on that very first day and doodled it later on my notebook at home while chatting with my Mum, telling her all about my new job. The name had a lovely feel to it. Móna Wise. Or maybe Móna Dempsey-Wise. Nah. No need to make it clunky. ‘Móna Wise’ sounded like she could be someone.

We were hired by a cigar smoking Kentucky millionaire who was a true visionary. He took a gargantuan historic (and terribly neglected) brewery and converted it into a beer lovers playground. Five stories of bars and restaurants catering to everyone from the inexperienced Bud Light aficionado to the champagne bubbles of a Chimay expert. He had chosen his crew carefully, each employee bringing a certain level of expertise to the table. The Chef was in charge of the kitchens, and I responsible for taking care of the guests. We were hired a month before the business opened its doors so had a bit of time to train the crew and flesh out the menus.

Recipes were drafted, tested and tried, resulting in the perfect pub grub to accompany the brewmasters brews and the bartenders bevies. A playful competition threw the Chef and I together when the owner requested a recipe for the best Irish Coffee for the bar menu. I am not a competitive person. I am a bit heedless when it comes to the rules and regulations of games and am a chronic daydreamer; I tend to drift off. When it came to making an Irish coffee there was, in my opinion, no competition. Let’s review the details. To begin with, I am Irish. One of the first things my Mum taught me as a ‘tween’ was how to make a Gaelic coffee; I could do it blindfolded. The Chef, being more worldly than I, and with a huge accolade of fancy qualifications hanging on his wall, around his neck, and in his knife case, assured the others that it would be his recipe for Irish Coffee that would make it on the menu. Ah, dude, aren’t you from Alabama like? The gauntlet had been thrown. Glasses were tempered, coffee was brewed and cream was whipped into pillowy softs. I swished and swirled the perfect glass ablaze with Jameson Gold and sugar clung with caramel legs on the inside, waiting to seep into the coffee, dark and strong; I used instant. Heated teaspoons layered pockets of cream on to the waiting black gold. A sprinkle of coffee granules on top for visual perfection and viola; winner hands down.

My handsome Chef then stepped up to the bar and began whisking his magic in a glass. No skill needed in brewing a pot of (weak) coffee Chef; come on now, show us your stuff! His attempt to layer his (delicious) cream was blundered by a shaky, or dare I say, nervous hand. The boss man stepped in to sample both and declared a winner. It appeared that my coffee, with all its flame, was enhanced to perfection when layered with his whipped cream; we made a good team. All I had to do was get him drunk, on Irish Coffees, to convince him of this fact.

If you are plotting or planning something special for your Valentine this year, why not plan a decadent evening at home together. Food and cooking, like a relationship, takes work and effort to make it fabulous. At the end of the day, it’s worth it, isn’t it?