Róisín Ingle on . . . a war with words

My new friend has asked me to sneak a particular word into this column. In all my 13 years writing here nobody has ever asked me to do that. Back in the day when John Banville wrote for this newspaper, my new friend used to get him to sneak words into his articles. "I'm no Banville," I told my friend. He laughed a bit too long and too loudly and said "Oh, I know that."

I’ve never snuck words in, but I have made some up over the years. I see it as a columnist’s privilege and part of the great evolution of language. Not everyone sees it that way. One reader got in touch, very politely, to tell me there is no such word as grimmer – which I used last week. All I know is that grimmer is an acceptable scrabble word and that’s good enough for me. But even if I did make it up, I have no regrets. If “selfie” is an actual word, found in the poshest of dictionaries, grimmer can be one too. At least around these parts.

I became a bit sick of words over the past few months. I was helping another friend out with a lengthy word-related project (I think some people call them books) and towards the end, the project began to feel like a weight on my back, a thorn in my side and big buzzing fly in the ointment of my life.

It was an inspiring and fulfilling gig but it was also hard work. Not real hard work like teaching or nursing or living in direct provision but enough of a grind to make me wonder whether I’d ever get it done and enough of a stresser to make feel more than a little hacked-off with words.

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I was sick of stringing them together and trying to make them sing. I fell out with words. Which was tough especially as we’d always been so close.

I like them again now. We’ve patched things up and we just don’t mention the recent war. The project is finished and it’s off to the next stage which I am unashamedly gleeful about having nothing whatever to do with.

I plan to spend all this free time sitting around in my pyjamas congratulating myself and saying: “I finished a word-related project that is far, far longer than this column and I am a genius for having got to The End. More gin please.”

In order to give this project my all, I let a lot of other things – family life, box-set watching, staring into space wondering if Taylor Swift needs another best friend – slide.

I do have a couple of loose, project-related ends to tie up. Soon I will be in Smyths Toys, buying my daughters “Anything You Want”. The bribe has hung tantalisingly over them all summer, like a piñata they’ve not been able to break into, as I’ve absented myself at weekends and bedtimes. The book was the reason for limiting their holiday to a few days in Mayo, instead of a couple of weeks. And those few days in Mayo nearly didn’t happen.

I took them away for one night to Old Forge Glamping in deepest Wicklow and that was going to the end of it, holiday-wise. But on the way home one of the girls piped up. “I loved our holiday, Mum.” And the thought of them being grateful for a one-night “holiday” led to me to organise another few days away, book or no book.

They keep checking about what exactly they can get in Smyths Toys. “Even something expensive? Even something that’s for a special occasion?”

“Yes,” I tell them. “Anything.” It’s by way of a reward/apology/guilt-quencher. I hope it works on all three levels.

The name of my other loose end is Queenie. I’ve barely spoken to my mother-in-law-in-waiting in months. I wouldn’t mind, but people keep asking me why she hasn’t featured on this page for so long, and I’ve almost forgotten what she looks like.

So soon we’ll head up North. She might bring me around the second-hand shops and tell me all that’s happened in Portadown and cook me a Sunday dinner and give me a stream of consciousness about what I should do with my roots.

Something very strange happened while I had my head buried in that project. I started to miss her. She’s as close as family now. And the (wait for it) verisimilitude of that realisation came as a very pleasant surprise. roisin@irishtimes.com