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Join me this Saturday in Mountjoy Square for the first ever Garden Squares Day, organised by the Dublin Civic Trust. I’ll be acting as a steward at Mountjoy Square, but there are four other squares hosting events: Parnell Square, St. Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square will all have their own festivities. In Mountjoy Square, we’ll have:

• 11am – Walking tour
• 12pm – Brass band and hot food
• 2pm – Tango Argentino
• 3pm – Chinese cultural exhibition of dance and kite flying (These aren’t going ahead but they’re looking for replacements!)

as well as:

• Plant stalls
• Mr. Whippy
• and Hot  food

Check out the news item and programme here – see you on Saturday!

As part of the WRF2 project

I realised recently that I spend an incredible amount of time with my family. From an outside perspective, that would make sense; I live with my brother (and girlfriend) and my parents live just around the corner. Three of us work in the same place and the fourth is there practically every day anyway. Thinking about it like this, it makes sense that we see each other all the time. This is only a recent occurrence, I think. I lived in France for a year and throughout a lot of my degree I saw them very little. In September I’m off to Belfast – that means I’ll see them a lot less. Having said that, I doubt it’ll make much of a difference. My grandparents live in New Zealand and yet I still hear from them pretty frequently. The wonders of text messages, cheaper international phone calls, e-mail and VOIP means that we can keep in touch from far, far away.

So what does family mean to me? I guess it means love, security and warmth. It means having people around you. We’re a pretty close-knit family I reckon. Working together makes it difficult at times, but that’s pretty normal!

Family to me means whatever we decide to make it. It doesn’t matter to me that people think my parents shouldn’t have children, or even that they shouldn’t have a legally recognised relationship. Try telling me that my mums don’t deserve recognition for staying together thirty years, for raising four cats, two dogs, a pony, a horse, countless chickens, rabbits, fish and two children. They’ve done a damn good job. They’ve provided for us for the last 24 years of my life and I know they’ll give me the support I need whenever I ask for it – and even when I don’t.

I’ve got a little brother who I can only really describe as a character – I’d be surprised if he stood still for more than a year at any point in his life. While I love a bit of consistency, he gets twitchy and craves change.

We aren’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure none of us care. We love each other and that’s far more important than any stepping-stone legislation, any discriminatory escape clause, any pompous self-serving religious and political figures, any idiot arguing from morals on an issue of rights.

We are family too – even if you don’t think we are.

Happy Pride everyone – enjoy the day, whether gay, lesbian, bi, straight, trans or other.

Anyone who knows me relatively well will know that I’m not the most active person. I love being comfortable and I think I could easily put “Being sentient” on a CV. Even now, while I write this I’m also playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (Boys can multi-task too). However, some things have to change. I was in New Zealand in January for my mammies’ civil partnership and remembered that I actually do enjoy a bit of physical activity. At that point, I decided I had to do something (anything!) in “the outdoors” (even if that only meant in Dublin 1). Being in final year, there was very little I could do apart from work and study, but since May I’ve been doing the occasional jog. I know I’ll need a little more motivation than just running the marathon however, so I’ve decided to do it for a good cause. You’ll probably know by now that I do some work for Positive Behaviour Ireland (although I’ve never actually mentioned that here), a small non-profit based in Dublin. PBI provides education services for young people in Dublin who otherwise would not be receiving education. We also provide parenting support in the form of parenting courses (The Incredible Years), behavioural assessment and behaviour management plans. Anyway, we’ve applied for our charity number and, with a little luck, we’ll get it in the next two months. We’ve had a couple of fundraising events in the past, from Paddy Ryan’s Vienna marathon and the Laughter Lounge comedy night to Niall O’Byrnes’ current ascent of Denali (Mt McKinley) in Alaska. We’ve recently had a successful funding application to the Edmund Rice Foundation and are also planning a move of premises in August to a space three times the size of our current centre – things are on the up-and-up for PBI!

So, anyway, the point of all this is that I am doing the Adidas Dublin City Marathon on October 25th 2010 in aid of Positive Behaviour Ireland and I want your sponsorship. Yes, yours. So go on, donate here. Go on. It’s really really easy. Donate as much or as little as you can. €10 is a good starter amount – I’ll be delighted and really appreciative if you donate above that. Also, get creative! How about this for a spur of the moment idea – if I get over €1000 I’ll do the whole marathon in drag. That’s 26.2 miles of Conor dressed up as a woman (I’ll wear trainers though – no way am I wear stilettos for a marathon!). Maybe you could sponsor me a euro a mile? How does that sound? Anyway, do what you can. If you can’t give a lot, get another two people to donate as well. It’s all for a good cause anyway – giving education and parenting skills to people who can then go on to do great things.

I’ll be doing a few other runs before the marathon itself, so hopefully by that point I’ll have some idea of how well I’ll do. Bear in mind, this is the first time I’ve ever jogged or run – it’s going well so far but I really need to stick to the routine I have. I’m aiming to jog/ run five times a week. I’m enjoying it so far – and rewarding myself with chocolate milk afterwards 😉

Thanks for reading and if you’re running the marathon (and especially if you want to get involved with fundraising for PBI) leave a comment! I’ll probably be Tweeting about training, so you can catch me there too. What I’d really like is to share a run a week with someone who has already run a marathon – so that I can get tips off them. Know anyone? Please do let me know.

Conor

Just a quick update to let you know that Daragh (the lil bro) and I will be on Ms. Panti’s radio show tomorrow. The show, broadcast on Open FM, has a special guest on (no, not us). You can listen in through OpenFM.ie or on 89.9FM on the old wireless. We’ll be on at about 7:20pm, so tune in and have a listen. We recorded it during the week and it was very relaxed and great fun to do so I’d like to thank Panti and the team for having us on!