I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. I was born in Portlaw and when my time comes to lie at the other side of the green sod, it is my wish that one third my ashes shall be placed upon my...