People 19 SARAH MOSS Teenage dieting made me an expert in mental arithmetic I bofin. It is suitable for grazing and features two natural freshwater lakes. The island measures 1.2km by 0.4km and rises to a maximum height of 63.3m above sea level. It is a Special Protection Area under the EU Bird Directive of special conservation interest for the barnacle goose, fulmar and Arctic tern. Accommodation: There are stone ruins of a seventh-century monastic settlement on the island which have national monument status and are therefore in Government ownership. Close to the southern landing area, there is a more modern building measuring 7m by 14m of timber construction with a galvanised roof. There is a septic tank on site, which has potential for a building to be constructed subject to the necessary planning permission. How to get there: By private rib boat from Claddaghduff or by helicopter. Best feature: The island is a haven for birds. m trying to describe to a friend how hot London was while I was there. Thirty-five degrees, I say, exaggerating only slightly. But my friend is American and thinks in Fahrenheit and though I can instantly convert all other metric measures to imperial, I cant do temperature. Adult life in the Britain of my 1980s childhood still in practical ways functioned in imperial measurements the road signs are even now in miles but in school we were taught metric, which means that British people of my age convert fluently between ounces and grams, kilograms and stone, miles and kilometres. I learned to cook in ounces because that was what my mother and grandmother and their balancing kitchen scales used. The architecture of shame and ambition around body weight was expressed in stone, which is still how I think of it when I feel bad, though since I cant do mental arithmetic in 1/12ths and 1/14ths I have to use kilos and centimetres for BMI. Teenaged dieting in this binumerate, pre-mobile-phone world left many of us expert in mental arithmetic. All our mothers carried calorie books that listed all known foods (there were fewer then; the books fitted in handbags) with calories per ounce (16 ounces to the pound, for younger readers), but after a few weeks we had it all memorised, unforgettable. Food was beginning to be sold in grams, so we had to convert, rounding a little one way or the other according to self-loathing on the day. We knew our weights in the stone of our bathroom scales, but American magazines and teen fiction worked in pounds, of which there were 14 to the stone, and when we were good enough at dieting to attract medical attention, our doctors used kilos, which are 2.2 pounds, 6.35kg to the stone, though how seriously our weight was taken depended also on height, known to our parents in feet and inches and to our doctors in centimetres. I ran less then, but could still calculate calories per kilometre or per mile and convert the result into apples or toast, because in those days it was fat rather than carbohydrate that made you fat and all the mothers on diets were allowed bread and rice and pasta but forbidden meat and cheese and eggs, which made sense because those were the expensive things on which men had first dibs. All of which is to say, much as these days I refuse to quantify my bodys needs, desires and displacement of air, I can still do all the sums, ran them so constantly for so many years that I have to remember not to. Perhaps its an advantage of outsourcing obsessive quantification to your phone that its easier to stop using apps than to stop your mind generating similar and equally destructive data. But I never learned Fahrenheit, perhaps because it didnt count anything the grownups moralised. You couldnt be good by being hotter or colder. The oven had a dial but it went from low to high, no numbers, and I knew from experience and touch what worked for different cakes and pies. Thirty-fives hot, I say to my friend, far too hot, hotter than it ever used to get here. Uncomfortable in the lightest sundress, sweating while sitting still. Think saunas. Hotter than anyone would ever choose. I mean, maybe not for you she lives in Arizona but here, for our bodies. With the humidity, she says helpfully, which is what people who cope just fine in far hotter places say when we north Atlantic islanders complain of excess heat. No, I say, even without the humidity, 35 is bad. Of course, we could look up the numbers. We have phones thats how were having this conversation but it becomes a game. Ice cream would melt before you could eat it, I say. Ive had to put my chocolate in the fridge. It feels good to pour cold water on your clothes, it feels good to have a cold shower, several cold showers. The cats avoiding direct sunlight, the breads rising in an afternoon. Im not suggesting that measuring temperature is a bad thing, though I can get almost as obsessive about the weather forecast in a heatwave as I once did about calories. But its interesting for once to step back from that shorthand and describe what its actually like to be in this body at this time in this place. The architecture of shame and ambition around body weight was expressed in stone, which is still how I think of it when I feel bad THE IRISH TIMES Weekend Saturday, August 1, 2026 DavidSedarisontheseriousbusinessofcomedy.Page8 WalledtownsofIreland:RositaBolandvisitsWexford.Page10 PatrickFreyne:GlenHansardwasIrelandsbandleader.Page5 WEEKEND THE IRISH TIMES Saturday, August 1st, 2026 A WOUND IS HEALED Afterdecadesofheartbreakandnearmisses, Mayofinallyhasitsmomentinthesun By 2 Cover story A HOUSE OF PAIN NO MORE MayosAll-Irelandtriumphreleased75yearsof pent-upemotioninoneunforgettableafternoon ByKeithDuggan M acHale Park in Castlebar has always been best suited to those Saturday-night matches in winter, when the season is young and the promise uncontained. An ideal Cover story meme, the jokes came thick and fast. Through all that, Mayo footballers and supporters never shied away from speaking about it, nor returning to All-Ireland finals. Maybe we make too much of the football, Fr Leo Morahan, the former county board executive, said back in 2007. Mayo has the 4 Cover story 2004, when he was beginning his sec- ond term as Mayo manager. By September, he had the county back in an All-Ireland final, when Kerry defeated his young team. Like most GAA counties, the network of names and connections within Mayo football are impossibly dense: you could fill the People GLEN HANSARD WAS OUR NATIONAL BARD TheFramesfrontmanwasIrelandsbandleader, anditfeltlikehewouldbedoingthejobfor alongtime ByPatrickFreyne I n the 1990s, I wasnt convinced by The Frames. They felt a bit mainstream. A bit major label. I was a young idiot. Later, a friend convinced me that I 6 Music THE PIANIST WHO PLAYS WITH ONE HAND ONLY Freya Terris is the first pianist to pass their Grade 8 piano exam playing solely with their left hand ByJohnOConnor L ike countless other young musicians, Freya Terris discovered her love of music at the piano stool. Yet her journey has been anyt People 7 Fearkeptmefrom doingwhatIreally wantedtodoorsay Q&ARevJanetBroderick The Donegal-based priest on childhood games with her brother actor Matthew Broderick, how people react when she preaches sermons, and who could play her in a biopic Howagreeableareyou? I think life has made me agreeable 8 Interview I DONT LIKE EXTREMISTS. BUT I FIND THEM THRILLING AS CHARACTERS TheUSwriterandhumouristtalksabouttheseriousbusinessofbeingfunny onthepageandathislivereadings ByPatrickFreyne WEEKEND INTERVIEW DAVID SEDARIS A few days after I interview David Sedaris, I receive a thank-you postcard fe Interview 9 I just tried to get through my days [at school] without being found out as gay. Im 69, so no one even really imagined then that anyone could be anything that awful back then DavidSedaris: Idontknowhow tobuyaplane ticket.Idontopen anymailthat doesntlooklike fanmail. Photograph: Leonardo 10 Feature HISTORY EMBRACES US EVERY DAY IN WEXFORD In the first of a four-part series on Irelands walled towns, we visit Wexford, where history is quite literally in peoples back gardens ByRositaBoland I f Billy Colfer talked to you about history, youd sit up and listen, Paul Walsh tells me. W Feature field. We discovered that Sparrow was a surname of ship owners back in the 1830s, Hussey says. Hussey brings me out into their back garden to show me where, more than a century ago, a house was built against the other side of their wall. The medieval wall thus became a party wall. It towers 12 Photo essay Formedtotacklethe siltingissueintheriver Liffey,thereservenow extendstotheentirety ofthebay WILD AT HEART Photographs: DaraMacDónaill andEndaODowd Words: EndaODowd O f the 797 Unesco biosphere reserves across 147 countries, Dublin Bay is the only one to include a national capital Photo essay DublinsNorth BullIsland,partof theDublinBay Unescobiosphere reserve,isnow hometo180 differentspeciesof bird.However, conservationists warnthat,asworks tostopcoastal erosionareerected alongthecoastline, theirlong-term impactonthe ecologyand landscapemaybe difficulttopredict. Photographs: 14 Feature TWINS PEAK WERE PROBABLY MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER Whetheritsthehighsofalwayshavingcompanyor thelowsofsensingtheotherspain,thebestpartof beingatwinisneverbeingstuckforafriend ByJenHogan I relands birth rate may be falling, but the incidence of twin births continues to rise, with al Feature 15 Its sometimes fun and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff had a friend beside you. In fact, the twins only really went their separate ways when they went to college and that was a major shock, Emma says. Rebecca says there are lots of upsides to being a twin, but the T 16 Essay he vintage front page shows a street full of Dublin holidaymakers smiling at the camera, sitting on the kerb, waiting for the bus in the sun. But these early queues soon dissipated. Bank holiday spoiled by weather, announces the reusable headline. The citys thoroughfares were WEEKEND E Essay 17 Governments might fancy deploying bank holidays to foster cohesion and goodwill, but that doesnt mean everybody has to play along crashing out of the Fifa World Cup was that Friday, July 24th, became the bank holiday that never was. Would Keir Starmers mooted last act have applied across 18 Feature BE LIKE JOHN LENNON AND BUY AN IRISH ISLAND Four islands for sale off Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Galway, with bidding starting at 299,000 ByJessicaDoyle W hen you attract screaming fans everywhere you go, what do you do to get some peace and quiet? You buy an island, of course. Tha People 19 SARAH MOSS Teenage dieting made me an expert in mental arithmetic I bofin. It is suitable for grazing and features two natural freshwater lakes. The island measures 1.2km by 0.4km and rises to a maximum height of 63.3m above sea level. It is a Special Protection Area under the EU Bird 20 Environment TOMAÍ Ó CONGHAILE Our beautiful, troubled planet needs a skilled reconciler T he World Cup may be over but the fallout continues: Trumps unwanted interventions; Germanys early exit; football not coming home; Argentinas post-final petulance. Not to mention, of course, that banner. Environment 21 British navy, spent several days imprisoned in the Tower of London on corruption charges, and died of smallpox before reaching 40. Initially, a strait running between the two main islands was named after him and, by 1765, the Falkland Islands had become the English name for the entire 22 Obituaries FIRST WOMAN DIRECTOR OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION, LIBRARIAN AND ACADEMIC Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon Born: January 28th, 1943 Died: July 23rd, 2026 Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon, who has died peacefully aged 83 at Blackrock Hospice, Dublin, was a leading light in that remarkable generat Obituaries 23 RENOWNED ORNITHOLOGIST AND COMIC ACTOR WHO STARRED IN THE GOODIES Bill Oddie BillOddiewasamemberofcomedy trioTheGoodies,whoseanarchicTV sketchshowairedinthe1970sand 1980s.Photograph:IanGavan/Getty Born: July 7th, 1941 Died: July 25th, 2026 Bill Oddie, who has died aged 85, was a mul 24 Last word DAVID McWILLIAMS ThefirstvictimofAI? Theeconomy W e are in an era of great technological advances, or so say all the tech bros who are championing not just AI, but a whole host of technological innovations from finance and healthcare to supply chain management and communications. In