This definition given isn’t exactly the one I was taught at my mother’s knee, but at least it confirms that the word isn’t just another of those vivid memories that I’ve invented to explain my childhood. It was always used …

The thing about a drawerful of pruck is that, in my seven-year-old mind, there was the persistent belief that it could be assembled, somehow, into a novel, complete working system or machine. It didn’t matter that almost every individual component …

Even though it’s a redbrick relic of the days of Victorian industry, it feels as if it the fishhouse has always been there -nestling in the leafy glen of Stranmillis. The door is glass panelled wood which has shed its …