Welcome to Litsy!

'Watching Sinead sweep up the aisle with her dad earlier was hard too, but sure we all float on.' -Pg 375

'They both loved Phil Collins. 'Groovy Kind of Love' came out the year they got married and any time it ever came on the radio, in the kitchen or the car, Daddy would sing it tunelessly at her. So we swayed to that at his funeral, and cried. It was fierce sad, but lovely.' -Pg 375

'The grief has been sneaking up on me at the most unlikely times - I passed an old man pushing a toddler on a swing on the walk in here and completely broke down. Daddy would have made the best Grandad. My sadness intensifies when I think of how my own future kids have been denied him...' -Pg 360

'Sadhbh's voice is wobbly and immediately I think about Mammy and what she went through twenty years ago (abortion), and here's Sadbhb dealing with the same thing. I'm surprised by the anger I feel bubbling up inside me about the journeys (Ireland to Liverpool/London) Mammy and Sadbhb had to take...' -Pg 338

'In the past forty-eight hours, from the most unlikely sources, I've learned more about Daddy than I had in the previous twenty-eight years.' -Pg 335

'...now he was leaving her alone. I suppose I had only ever really seen them as Mammy and Daddy before. Parents, not as people with their own separate relationships and hopes and dreams and jokes and lives. It's finally time to grow up.' -Pg 332

'Ive never felt more alone. My Daddy. My safety. My heart. He minded me all those years and I only managed to mind him for a fraction of it. My Daddy.' -Pg 323

'I know what she's saying, but at the same time she can't be actually saying it, can she?
"Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Marian? Aisling?" Still in her doctors voice but lower now.
" He's going to die." My Daddy. My strong Daddy.' -Pg 322

(Talking about abortion)
' "And sure it's everywhere now. The young ones think it's their fight. And it is, now. But it's a fight that's been going on for years. I just wasn't much use in helping." She sounds wrecked.
"Ah, Mammy. Don't say that. It's not your job to change things."
"It shouldn't be yours either, Aisling. But you can help (friend). The poor craythur. Look after her." ' - Pg 309

'..."We didn't want another baby. We couldn't have another baby. We had our babies. And when I went to Dr Maher again, I knew I was pregnant. I told him I didn't want it, I couldn't have it, and he told me I wasn't the first and I wouldn't be the last." -Pg 307

(An Irish woman on getting an abortion):
' "It was hard enough to scrape together enough to go to Liverpool at all"... "Do you think I'm awful?"
"No... no, Mammy. I just... I just didn't think people... well, parents really did that."
"Sure aren't your parents people, Aisling?" ' -Pg 306