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Name: Caroline O’Sullivan
Age: 57
Occupation: Retail administrator
Location: Co Kerry
What type of house is it? A cottage built in the mid 1800s
How many bedrooms and bathrooms? One bedroom, one bathroom. We converted the second bedroom into a kitchen.
When did you move in? Less than a week ago, on July 24, 2020
Who lives there? Myself, my partner, and our six cats!
This cottage was my partner’s childhood home, and though he hadn’t lived here in 30 or so years, it holds a very special place in his heart. We’ve spent a long time renovating it and finally moved in just over a week ago.
Our living room is more or less finished and I love it. I’m looking forward to winter, lighting the turf-burning stove and a few candles. During the summer it’s bright and airy as it has windows front and back.
We converted a small bedroom into a kitchen. It was tricky to get everything I needed into such a tight space, but it got done. Although the space is small, it’s efficient, and I love cooking there.
Now that the inside of the cottage is nearly there, it’s time to start thinking about clearing the jungle at the back of the house, and giving this home a garden once again.
The ceilings in this cottage are high – nearly 11 feet tall – and they’re my favourite part of it. They were initially painted a dark brown, so we spent the first few weeks of the Covid lockdown cleaning them up and painting them a brilliant white.
We like to wake up early without alarms, between 6 and 6.30am. The six cats need feeding first. Then it’s onto tea and homemade brown bread for us, usually eaten while sitting at the table in the living room and looking out at our bird feeders.
I work part time, and since we began this refurbishment most of my time has been taken up the cottage: you’ll find me painting, or working on upcycled furniture for one of the various rooms.
How does an average day end in your home right now?
Dinner is between 6 and 7pm, the cats are fed again and then we’ll head up the laneway for a ramble. We’re quite high up here, so there are fantastic views from Mount Brandon and across to the Shannon estuary.
Afterwards Tom might watch a bit of TV, while I catch up with my favourite accounts on Instagram with a final cuppa. On weekdays we’re both in bed by 10pm, mad ones that we are!
Is there anything you’d do differently if you were designing this home from scratch?
We don’t have a back door here so I think I’d sacrifice some bathroom space to have one.
Other than that we’re pretty happy with it.
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Setting up a transformation office? How many gardai have been allocated to this? Setting up a fancy shmancy office isn’t going to make a difference to the ordinary copper out there, who works 6 ten hour shifts back to back, who have no funding, have shoddy equipment, who deal with signing a hundred passport forms a day, telling someone their relative has just died, dealing with members of the public who all think the function of the gardai is to wave a magic wand and everything will be grand, confronting violent and sometimes armed individuals who have no regard for person or property and wouldn’t hesitate in killing a garda.. The list goes on. What’s needed is about 5,000 more gardai to deal with just the everyday things. Taking calls, responding to said calls, not to be telling the public “we’ve no car today because they’re in court, so we’ll get to your burgled house in about 5 hours “, proper allocation of time to investigate crimes. Oh and they also need a management that give a sh*t about them.
Amen to that MrsWoman.
Not the job it used to be, low pay = low interest in the job, no matter what industry.
Transformation office? When I read that I thought Kathryn Thomas was going to be weighing some fat coppers once a week while Karl Henry tried his best to give out to them.
Combatting the scourge of the breakfast roll.
A transformation office? Now that’s the best one I’ve heard yet
Hhmm . We will see about this ” reform” ? No confidence in the Governments ” security guards”.
Total waffle. G in Garda now stands for girlie.
Hillarious. Did you come up with that all by yourself?
Wonder will it make any difference to a force that has the tradition of what we have seen over the years? Not very hopeful
What tradition is that?….
And P in Peter now stands for Tool
Reserves badly managed, very unfair on all involved. Should be an asset but set up so badly it will not work, a pity many with good intentions but no guidance.
I wonder did they call it Operation Transformation
The transformation office is charged with……
Blocking reform, maintaining illegal gardai perks and practises, insuring that all investigations of garda wrong doing is suppressed. Naturally a lot of middle ranking gardai will be of the streets to staff the office. Ahhhh the smell of quango and corruption permeates the FG/LAB junta.
Is Mik The Pink now directing which way the Garda Siochana should be run
Thats soooo soooo reassuring.
A “transformation office” are we guna hav pre-op & post-op shicaloni now?
Mrswoman, could the 5,000 extra gardai needed be filled with garda reservists? Could they help out walk the beat, sign passports etc etc? Free up time
@Shelly. Are there even 5000 reserves? They don’t have full powers. They don’t work (as reserves) everyday… They don’t get paid. Not worth a damn.
Another sign of the Gardai being run by bean counters and desk jockeys of many varieties. Policing is not a business, you can’t run it like a business. Jobs for the boys in nice safe offices, people with useless management degrees telling actual police officers what to do. No regard for what is actually needed – more actual Gardai – not reserves – and not politically correct yes men & women. More shite “reform” from the “New” Commissioner – sure she’s a new broom blah blah blah
fas is now solas, what a difference.
I just think they (reservists) should be allowed to do the more mundane jobs and your time could be freed up to do proper policing. They could be rostered to get more involved on the days they work. That’s all
@Shelly, as far as I know the reserves accompany gardai to calls, help out in the station etc. But you might see a reserve once every three or four weeks…. They should concentrate on getting more Gardai out there, the force is crying out for not hundreds, but thousands.
Transformation me Asre!!! Are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai cancelling penalty points for themselves? their buddies and judges. Are we really gonna see a stop to murdering the spirits of well meaning and honourable whistleblowers? are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai being the private security thugs for government and Irish Water and Shell? Are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai fabricating evidence in pursuit of innocent or guilty parties? Are we really gonna see a transformation of their current ‘inability’ to pursue corrupt politicians, clergy, bankers and elite generally? Are we gonna see a transformation of the majority of PC plodders being silent about the behaviour of the minority of gardai? Not bloody likely….
fantastic by the government yet again. i can’t wait for FGs second term :)
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