Ross O’Carroll Kelly: ‘It’s the Celtic Phoenix, Sorcha. People are thankfully being stupid again’

So we’re, like, dropping Honor to school – although Sorcha’s doing the actual driving because I celebrated the French result pretty hord and there’s a decent chance that I’ve still got the blood alcohol level of Guns N’ Roses in their prime.

I've got a big, hairy hangover rattling my bors and Honor isn't helping matters, reading from – of all things – the Bible? Not that she's found God or anything. Honor chose the other side a long, long time ago. But the school is holding auditions today for the job of performing the readings at the Easter Mass and Honor is determined to snag the port ahead of her newest nemesis, Sally Lewis-Long – as she said herself, "just to see the look on the stupid cow's face".

I've got 300 people camping out in a field in Clonord, waiting to put deposits down on houses that don't even go on the morket until spring 2018

I love that she’s competitive like me. But, on the downside, my brain is crying listening to Sorcha running lines with her.

Honor's going: "A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes?"

And Sorcha’s there: “No, you’re making it sound like a question, Honor.”

"Excuse me?"

“I’m saying there’s no question mork at the end of that sentence. Can you say it like this? A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes.”

"A reading from the Book of, like, Ecclesiastes?"

“No, no, you’re still saying it like it’s a question.”

“A reading from the Book of, like, Ecclesiastes.”

“That’s better. Now, see can you say it without saying the word ‘like’. A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes.”

“A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes.”

“Very good!”

I’m still trying to come up with a name for this new estate agency that I’m hoping to set up. I’m there, “What do you think of ‘Buy-Buy For Now’? That one actually came to me in a dream last night?”

Big sulky face

But Sorcha's still not happy with the idea of me leaving Hook, Lyon and Sinker to go out on my own, so she just blanks me and continues driving with a big sulky face on her – a bit like Jamie Heaslip when you mess with the seat settings in his Range Rover Sport.

I’m there: “Sorcha, I know you don’t 100 per cent agree with what I’m doing. But why am I making all this dosh for JP’s old man when I could be making it for me? Me slash us?”

She still doesn’t say anything.

Honor's in the back, going: "Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income?"

"Again," Sorcha goes, "you're saying it like it's a question. It's not, 'satisfied with their income?' It's, 'satisfied with their income'. Try it again – from, like, the stort?"

“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.”

“That’s it, Honor! Beautifully, beautifully read!”

I'm there: "I really wish you'd support me like that? It's supposed to be the Celtic Phoenix, Sorcha. People are thankfully being stupid again. As a country, we're nearly back to where we were in '03."

Honor goes: "As goods increase, so do those who, like, consume them? And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them?"

We pull up at a red light outside Foxrock church. "It's not that I don't support you," Sorcha goes. "It's just I thought we were happy as we were?"

"The sleep of a labourer is sweet," Honor goes, "whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them, like, no sleep?"

“It’s just, ‘no sleep’, Honor. Drop the intonation.”

“Their abundance permits them no sleep.”

I’m like: “What’s the point in just being happy as you are? Sorcha, I’ve got 300 people camping out in a field in Clonord, waiting to put deposits down on houses that don’t even go on the morket until spring 2018. There’s massive, massive money to be made out there. If I do this, I could end up pulling in somewhere north of two to three million yoyos a years.”

Money

Oh, that gets her attention. She’s like: “Excuse me?”

“Two to three mills, Sorcha. That’s the kind of money I’m talking about.”

Honor's there: "I have seen, like, a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners, or wealth lost through some, like, misfortune, so that when they have children, there is nothing left for them to, like, inherit?"

“Stop saying ‘like’,” Sorcha goes, talking to Honor, but suddenly staring at me. “Just read what’s on the page. Two to three million, Ross?”

I’m there: “That’s in the first year. After that, it could be four or five.”

“Oh! My God!”

“You’ve seen the gaff that JP’s old man owns?”

“It’s an amazing, amazing house.”

"Well, he's got one twice that size in France. "

“I’d love to own a house in France. It wouldn’t even have to be big. It’d be lovely just to be able to say to the other mothers, ‘Oh, we have a house in France, too’.”

“Then trust me, Sorcha.”

Honor’s like, “Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb. And, as everyone comes, so they depoyurt . . .”

“The word is ‘deport’,” Sorcha goes.

Honor’s like: “That’s what I said.”

“No, you said ‘depoyurt’. You’ve made three syllables out of it. It’s just ‘deport’. D, e, p, a, r, t – deport.”

I’m there: “Come on, Sorcha, what do you say?”

Some dude in an Audi TT behind gives us a polite beep to let us know that the light has turned green. I thank him by giving him the finger over my shoulder.

Sorcha's like, "It's something you're genuinely good at. I suppose there is an argument to say, okay, why should you be making money for someone else?"

"They take nothing from their toil," Honor goes, "that they can carry in their hands?"

I’m there, “I’m going to wait about six or eight weeks before I tell him that I’m going out on my own. I’ve storted stealing files – slipping them inside my coat every night before I leave. They’re my clients. I’m entitled to them.”

Sorcha just nods, still considering it. “Okay,” she goes. “I’ll support you.”

"This is the word of the Lord?" Honor goes.

And I automatically go: “Thanks be to God.”