My mother-in-law kept showing up with her whole family for free BBQ at our house — when they came empty-handed again on the 4th, I served them a lesson instead.

My mother-in-law kept showing up with her whole family for free BBQ at our house — when they came empty-handed again on the 4th, I served them a lesson instead.

We live at Tullamane, which is eleven acres and a farmhouse about four miles outside Ashglen.

Dermot and I have been married seven years. Etta is ten and Ruari is six. We keep sheep, badly, and Dermot works four days a week at the co-op in town, and I do the books for three other farms from a desk in the back room.

And since about 2019, my mother-in-law has treated this property as a venue.

Solange Halloran is sixty-six. She has two daughters — Nessa, forty-one, and Roisin, thirty-eight — and between them there are six grandchildren, and when they come, they all come.

Eleven adults and children minimum. Sometimes fourteen.

They came nine times last year. I know that because of the spreadsheet, and I’ll get to the spreadsheet.