Signs that your mammy may be Irish

She’s suspicious of charity packers in supermarkets, is afraid of the ‘damp step’, and has an on-off relationship with her mobile phone. Comedian COLM O'REGANidentifies some of the key characteristics of The Irish Mammy

ANTI-COLD MEASURES

There is nothing better in the human experience than a child’s path through life as they explore the world around them. Irish Mammy’s job is to ensure they don’t get a cough or a cold while doing so. Ireland’s location makes this a constant job – and Science is not on Mammy’s side: Ireland is sitting in an awful draught.

There are two main ways in which colds are contracted. The draughts are the most pernicious, chiefly because this is the reason most Irish Mammies themselves catch a cold. The draught occurs most often while they are at a gathering or a group occasion where they have no choice about where they are sitting. There is the dark suspicion that Mammy’s anti-cold measures have been breached by the perfidy of a male.

The second type of cold-transmission is inexcusable: Self-inflicted Due to a Lack of Sense.

It is the cold contracted by a child aged between zero and forty-two years of age.

It is inexcusable, because the child may have done that which they were expressly warned against – discarding a coat too early in the year or sitting on a damp step.

Although there is no medical evidence that sitting on a damp step causes a cold in your kidneys, nor any official medical pathology that indicates there is even such a thing as a cold in your kidneys, it’s hard to gainsay the advice of generations of Irish Mammies.

Top reminiscible diseases and ‘health events’

* Will I ever forget that winter? All three of ye had croup. Can you imagine that? Three small girls under the age of five. And what’s more, your father in bed with a cold.

* Do you remember when you had whooping cough? I was up and down that stairs with the kettle.

* We were all set to go. Next thing the phone rings. It’s the school. “We think Deirdre has chicken pox,” they said. And that was the end of Malaga.

* I can’t get over how much sleep you need now, when you wouldn’t sleep for me until you were about two.

* I don’t know what you were doing but didn’t you swallow the crayon. And Dr Phelan was as cool about it. “Don’t be worrying,” says he. “That’ll pass naturally.”

THE WEEKLY SHOP

She’s making a list; she’s checking it twice. She’s going to find out who’s home for the weekend and whether she needs an extra sliced pan or not. Irish Mammy is preparing for the weekly shop. Now she just has to find her bags-for-life and she is ready to go.

Once at the shops, Mammy faces obstacles that are perfectly surmountable but annoying nonetheless.

“Why do they keep moving everything around? Aren’t they very cute now?”