“I HAVE of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.”

Hamlet’s mopey quote was at the back of my mind the other day as between one thing and another, I couldn’t shake a lowly mood.

I woke up with it, as if it had slipped into bed beside me and stolen my joie de vivre.

It nestled beside me at breakfast and sat in the boot of the car as I dropped the children off at school.

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It was a numb, unusual mood, but I then remembered that my dad’s anniversary was that day and I didn’t have to search any further for its source.

My dad died when I was 15 and it kinda defined my life. We went from being a happy-go-lucky family – he owned a good bar on the Antrim Road – to being a complete mess.

Also, we were then… famous. The family at Mass whose father had dropped dead, whose business was lost,........

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