WHEN I WAS in primary school, a classmate told me their cousin was going to be four years old the following day.

Instantly on high alert I strongly suspected they were making fun of me. I knew who their cousin was and they were not four years old at all; they were the very same age we were – eight.

I always did live my days paying attention to only that which appealed to me and gave me joy, so when I learned about a phenomenon called a Leap Year, my sensitive imagination went into overdrive. I couldn’t get my eight-year-old psyche around it at all. A child, through no fault of their own, coming into being on a day that exists only once every four years? Immediately my underdeveloped, “what-will-people-think?” brain stapled a stigma onto having a Leap Year Birthday. Sure that was nearly as unfortunate as being born on actual Christmas Day. Or either side of Christmas. Hells Bells!

My birthday falls during the Christmas month and happily I share the same date with Sinéad O’Connor and Jim Morrison, 8 December. Observed as a Holy Day and because I was educated by a religious order, throughout my entire primary and secondary school career, I got the day off.

Life is full of swings and roundabouts and this holiest of milestones presented another headache for me. No-one in school knew it was my birthday because, well, we weren’t there. All of my friends celebrated theirs during the........

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