Ireland
Twenty years – that’s how long I’ve been working as a freelance writer; creating fresh, informative, and engaging feature articles, opinion pieces, personal columns, and copy for media and commercial clients.
I write in English and Irish about health and wellbeing; food, nutrition, and how we eat now; social and women’s issues; the environment; parenting and relationships; lifestyle; and the Irish language.
I have a particular interest in some of these topics. I used to run my own award-winning café, which gave me an insider’s knowledge of the food sector as well as an abiding interest in all things food.
As a native Irish speaker, I am all too aware of the challenges facing minority languages.
My work has been published in publications such as The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times, and Irish America.
I have had a popular bilingual column in the Irish Post newspaper since 2008.
I write advertorial too, tailoring my tone to suit my clients. My work in this sector is as varied as my journalism. I’ve worked with NewsCred, the world’s leading enterprise content marketing company, on campaigns for major brands such as Coca-Cola. I’ve created marketing emails and website copy for travel agencies. And I write all sorts of pieces for my local newspaper, Kerry’s Eye, ranging from company profiles to 20-page pull-out supplements celebrating the best food and drink experiences in the region.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve built up long-term relationships with editors and clients who trust the standard of my work. Whether they commission me to write an article about the damaging effects of diet culture or a blog post chronicling the adventure’s of a tour guide in Japan, they know that I will deliver accurate and entertaining copy to their specific brief and to their set deadline.
Contact me: [email protected]
Fiona Buckley was once a corporate high-flier. She spent 16 years in that sector, rising to the position of vice president of professional services for a global tech company. While working in one such role, she began to experience mental and physical health issues.
One of the best places to experience Irish culture, history and stunning natural beauty, is the Shannon region, and it's just a direct flight away from New York and Boston. The song says that it's a long, long way from Clare to here - that's likely to be true for most of you reading this.
Recently published
GPs are the cornerstone of our healthcare system. Whenever we have a health issue, we are told to contact them for advice on how to treat it. But what happens if they are unavailable? What if we have to wait days, even weeks, for an appointment?
Martin Quinn was being interviewed on live radio when suddenly he couldn't answer the questions he was being asked. "I knew what I wanted to say but something prevented me from getting the words out," he says. He had had a stroke. Two more were to follow.
LAST month, the World Health Organisation declared climate change 'the single biggest health threat facing humanity'. It warned that global warming would lead to escalating physical and mental health problems. The signs are already there.
What makes a family? Only a generation ago, Irish families mostly consisted of married men and women and their children. Single parents were shunned. Same-sex couples weren't considered candidates for parenthood. And those who struggled to conceive often did so in shame and silence.
It's 6.45am on Monday morning and I can't get out of bed. My alarm went off three-quarters of an hour ago, but my body still isn't ready to get up. It's not because I was late going to bed. I was in bed by 9.30pm and asleep by 10pm.
WE Irish are celebrated for the hundred thousand welcomes to give to those who visit our country. It's something we are renowned for all over the world. At this moment in history, we are extending that welcome to people from the Ukraine.
Comment and opinion pieces
I finished this unusual book yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since. It's the story of Doireann's life interwoven with that of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Doireann is a poet and a mother. She has three sons and when we meet her, she is about to give birth to a daughter.
I'M THE cook in my family and there's one question I've come to dread over the past year and a half: 'What's for dinner?'. Even though I usually enjoy cooking, with everyone stuck at home, day in and day out, lockdown turned meal making into a daily drudge.
ALL over the world, people are reading the tragic story of Sarah Everard. Women everywhere feel for her and her family. This is because what happened to her is every woman's worst nightmare. From childhood, we are constantly warned about the danger that lurks outside our door.
NOLLAIG SHONA, a léitheoirí. Tá súil agam go bhfuil sibh go léir ar bhur sáimhín só, pé áit ina bhfuil sibh ag céiliúradh séasúr na Nollag i mbliana. Sí an Nollaig an t-aon tréimhse amháin sa bhliain gur féidir liom sos iomlán a ghlacadh ó mo chuid oibre.
Every day, we are told just how many cases of the virus have been diagnosed in the country and how many deaths there have been as a result. Some people complain that this places far too much emphasis on the virus.
An ad that featured frenzied women in an office informing each other it was 11.30am before rushing to the window to leer at a bare-chested beefcake on a neighbouring building site.
Health and wellness
Nichola Wilson-Miller, a 48-year-old business coach and mother from Dunmanway in Cork, was 46 years old when she had a heart attack in 2020. Having joined the Royal Navy after school and spent her life being fit and active, she could not believe what was happening to her.
Infertility rates are rising worldwide. According to the World Health Organisation, one in four couples fail to conceive after one year of unprotected sex. In Ireland, one in six couples experiences infertility. For decades, we have pointed the finger at women playing Russian roulette with their biological clocks by delaying starting a family until their careers are established.
HOW well are you coping with lockdown number three? In these dark days of winter, as Covid-19 case numbers remain stubbornly high and the pandemic looks likely to restrict our lives for months to come, it would be no wonder if your mental health was suffering. Many of us are feeling the pressure.
What would you do if you realised there was a cheap and widely available vitamin that might have the potential to protect us against becoming seriously ill with Covid-19 and help us to fight the virus? This is a question that Dr Daniel McCartney, a lecturer in human nutrition and dietetics at the Technological University of Dublin, asked himself last year.
What's your gut feeling? Scientists have recently begun to understand that what happens in our gut affects our overall health. A new study even goes so far as to suggest that what happens there can predict how well we will age. Our intestines are ecosystems of their own, consisting of trillions of bacteria, viruses and other microbes.
Once a French woman has given birth she is offered free physical sessions to rebuild her pelvic floor. In Ireland, the need to exercise this area is barely addressed, often leading to ongoing issues with bladder control and less pleasure in sex. Sharon Ní Chonchúir reports. How toned is your pelvic floor?
Sharon Ní Chonchúir savours the sublime new treatment at Inchydoney Spa. 'I LOOK terrible," I groaned as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My partner nervously considered how to respond. "I wouldn't say you look terrible," he said. "You just look like someone who hasn't had a lot of time to spend on herself for a while."
Ireland's first surfing camp for children with autism takes place this month. Surf 2 Heal brings a special water therapy experience to children and their parents, writes Sharon Ní Chonchúir OUT ON THE ocean, a small figure rises hesitantly to her feet.
The sky is dark and heavy with clouds as I pull into a Tralee carpark shortly before 8am on a weekday morning. My mood is equally downcast as I'm due to spend the day travelling to Cork on what is locally called the 'Cancer Bus' - a service that brings people from all over Kerry to their radiotherapy and chemotherapy sessions in Cork University Hospital.
Food, nutrition and how we eat now
Could you be addicted to a white substance that gives us a temporary yet thrilling rush of energy, but that can also cause significant health problems in the long term? This isn't a class A drug we're discussing. It's not even prohibited by law.
The message is loud and clear. We must eat less meat to save the planet and protect our health. But what if the plant-based meat substitutes available in our supermarkets fail to deliver enough protein to sustain us?
Once we sloshed cow's milk over our cereal but now it's all about choice. But do we risk losing key nutrients by switching to non-dairy options, asks Sharon Ní Chonchúir. WHAT could be more wholesome than cow's milk?
Bubble, bubble, fizz, fizz. These are the noises coming from many Irish restaurants as chefs becoming increasingly curious about fermented foods such as kefir, kimchi and kombucha. At Five Points in Harold's Cross, jars of sauerkraut and pickled beets and carrots line the shelves. At the Happy Pear in Greystones and Clondalkin, there's kombucha, kimchi [...]
This is part three of a three part series on new vegan enterprises in Ireland. To read part one, an interview with Moodley Manor, click here. To read part two, an interview with My Goodness Food, click here. Q: What do Brad Pitt, Miley Cyrus and Rosanna Davison have in common?
FEW people live as close to the sea as I do. My house is on a cliff at the north-western edge of the Dingle Peninsula, where it bears the full brunt of the Atlantic Ocean. Some of my neighbours still practice traditional ways and I occasionally see them collecting seaweed from the shoreline.
Social and women's issues
It's high summer and the women of Ireland are soaking in the sunshine in their bare legs, strappy sandals, and sleeveless T-shirts. To a casual onlooker, it may have seemed that the transition from the black tights and woolly cardigans of winter to this summer wardrobe was a quick and easy one.
Bold advertising campaigns have helped to change how we view menstruation but we need to keep the focus on women's experience, says Sharon Ní Chonchúir I'M on the rag as I write. Aunt Flo is visiting and it's very much my time of the month.
Sharon Ní Chonchúir talks to US psychologist Sarah Hill, who says the pill can affect your behaviour, sense of smell and choice of partner. Have you ever been on the pill? Considering it's one of the most reliable forms of contraception, many women are likely to answer this question with a yes.
A photo roused the world to action last year. When people saw the drowned body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach, they realised they had to do something to help the thousands of refugees arriving in Europe. The only question was what.
A new film about the Depaul Trust's wet hostels, where alcoholics are allowed to continue drinking, challenges our perceptions of the homeless, writes SHARON NÍ CHONCHÚIR A DISHEVELLED man in an oversized raincoat and tattered hat weaves a shopping trolley through the streets of Dublin.
The environment
IS it time to stop eating hamburgers, steak dinners, as well as joints of beef for Sunday lunch? This is the question being asked by climate change activists who claim that beef farming is harming the planet. Beef farming has a long history in Ireland.
Parenting and relationships
Hagai Tzarfati and his wife Rosie Smallwood have had their lives upended. Since their son Elliot was born a month ago, this Dublin-based couple has been sleep-deprived and are now wondering how they will manage when Hagai goes back to work in a few days. "I'm dreading it," he says.
I was unpacking the shopping when I realised I'd couldn't find my wallet. It wasn't in my handbag. It wasn't in the car. Nor was it in any of my usual spots around the house. Worried that I'd have to cancel my cards, I bundled my six-month-old baby into the car and rushed back into town, retracing the steps I'd taken that day.
CAN you remember your mother or father sitting you down to have 'The Talk'? The one where they told you what they thought you needed to know about sex and making babies? For most of us, this talk was excruciatingly embarrassing.
I can close the front door of my house on the Dingle Peninsula and be on my nearest beach within five minutes. Fewer if I walk quickly. It is not the longest stretch of sand and, depending on the tides and time of year, it can sometimes be covered in seaweed so stinky we can smell it from our house.
AMERICAN YouTuber Myka Stauffer was living the dream: a beautiful home and family. In 2017, Myka and her husband James, who now have four birth children, adopted two-year-old Huxley from China. Myka's YouTube figures soared thanks to entertaining footage of him adjusting to life in America and finding his feet in his new family.
Labour of love: Taking the surrogacy route to parenthood By Sharon Ní Chonchúir The decision by Rosanna Davison and her husband to look for a surrogate to carry their baby shows the lengths to which some couples go to realise their dream, writes Sharon Ní Chonchúir.
From podcasts to TV programmes and forums, mums are breaking with tradition and freely talking about the trials of labour. But is this always a good thing, asks Sharon Ní Chonchúir.
A new arrival can take its toll on couples - especially in terms of sleep, stress and sex. Stretched first-time-mum Sharon Ní Chonchúir talks to experts about how to make the transition easier. You've decided on a name, bought the buggy and decorated the nursery.
MY NAME is Sharon and I have MS (Multiple Sclerosis). I used to keep that information secret. I even went as far as keeping it from myself, living in a state of denial about my own health for years. But now that's changed. I'm 30 weeks pregnant as I write this.
Irish society and culture
By Sharon Ní Chonchúir, Contributor Dublin's fair city has changed in recent years. Cranes have come to dominate its skyline and people of all hues - Polish, Chinese and African as well as Irish - now throng its streets. Yet one essential aspect remains the same.
CHILDHOOD memories are precious to us all. They give us a sense of where we came from and the people and places that shaped the adults we have become. Imagine how it might feel if your childhood memories consisted of life with your hippie parents on the Great Blasket Island at the end of the 1970s.
By Sharon Ní Chonchúir, Contributor April / May 2015 Shannon Ní Chonchúir visits Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery, the final resting place of many famous Irish people including Daniel O'Connell, Maud Gonne, and Brendan Behan, and talks to Aoife Kelleher about her doucmentary on Ireland's largest cemetery.
Irish language/Gaeilge
TÁ rud amháin mar gheall ar an slí ina ndéantar tuairisciú ar an víreas chorónach a ghoileann orm go mór. Gach lá, deirtear linn cé méid cás den víreas atá sa tír ar an lá san agus cé méid duine atá básaithe dá bharr.
Tá an gheimhreadh chughainn agus mar is eol d'éinne a lean Game of Thrones ar an dteilifís, ní maith an rud é sin. Tá uimhir na ndaoine atá breoite leis an víreas corónach ag méadú in aghaidh an lae agus cheana féin, táthar ag caint faoina srianta atá le teacht.
AN cuimhin libh an chéad uair a chuala sibh duine éigin ag rá gur cheart dúinn a bheith buartha faoi bhreoiteacht a bhí ag bagairt ar mhuintir na Síne? Fear mór imní is ea mo chéile agus bhí sé ag déanamh buaireamh dó a tús na bliana.
By Sharon Ní Chonchúir, Contributor December / January 2020 ℘℘℘ A journey through the native Irish-speaking areas of Ireland These are the words of welcome that Irish people have greeted visitors with for centuries. They may well be the words that greet you when you visit.
By Sharon Ní Chonchúir, Contributor February / March 2018 Darach Ó Séaghdha has been putting the fun back into the Irish language by translating words into English in a humorous, thought-provoking way, and deftly using Twitter to expand his audience.
Croeso i Gymru. These words welcome you to Wales. Written on road signs, they tell you you're in a country with a language and culture all of its own. Turn on the TV in Wales and you'll hear Welsh being spoken.
Copywriting
Come and taste the food of Kerry
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