We had to go to the hospital the other day to visit a cousin of Fionnuala’s, who was laid up for a week with a leg broken in two places. I wince thinking about what happened to him.

He is a farmer, and a well-to-do one at that, though of course, you wouldn’t know it.

He looked like he hadn’t a dime, scorching up to the house in a battered pick-up, covered in dung and wearing a boiler suit that made him look like a giant Tellytubby.

And he is comical too, quick witted and playful. When he smiles, his good teeth gleam behind the dirty beard and mucky face.

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He once told me a cracker about sorting eggs one morning in one of his big hen houses, alongside a rough-and ready woman who kept asking him, in an incredulous tone, if he been to the grammar school.

Eventually, when he had convinced her he had indeed, for seven years, she paused and said, well what the hell are you standing here at six o clock in the morning gathering eggs with me?

Hiding his........

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