For me, it’s mam, not mum; mammy, not mummy. I could never get this mum or mummy business. Maybe it’s a cultural divide. The kids in school with country parents referred to their mammy. The rest around places like Castleknock speak of mum or mummy. The Americanisation of the Irish dialect was taking hold as far back as the ’80s or did Irish mums exist before colour television?

There are also pockets of Dublin where mammy reigns supreme, like near where Mrs Brown reared her boys. Yes, the salt-of-the-earth Dublin street traders and the women who ran the household on small country farms had more in common than they realise. They reared big families and they were mammies, not mummies.

Mammy is as patently Irish as “you’re grand”, and I am trying but failing to imagine the offspring of any other English speaking nation referring to their mammy. So why do we have to go all mom and mum?

Then there is mother. The more refined, the landed gentry, or dare I say it when I was a chap, the Protestants referred to mother. There is an air of reverence to it, a real show of respect if you referred to mother. I always conjure up the image of a matriarch, a true champion of the home, the real boss, whenever what I would refer to as mammy was and is referred to as mother. I like it, but I would have been too ordinary to shout mother when looking for my school tie, too country to yell mummy.

And what about ma? As in: “Me Ma is calling me for me dinner.” This was a somewhat uniquely pubescent Dublin term of endearment, where my mammy became me ma at around 13 years of age. I don’t think mummy became me ma though from memory.

Sadly mammies and mams are a dying species, if the Mother’s Day cards are anything to go by. I would defy you to find a Mother’s Day card for your mammy. Lots of mummies and mums but few mammies and mams. It’s the same with Christmas and birthday cards. So instead of wasting time rummaging through Eason’s for one, Deirhbile and Patrick will this weekend make a homemade card as they usually do and it will be for mam. On Father’s day, it will be addressed to dad.

Anyway, regardless of how you refer to her, it’s all the same. We only have one and we are a lesser without them. So to all the mams, moms, mammies, mums, mummies, mas and mothers out there, happy Mother’s day! CL

Defying critics in their quests for glory

What have Donald Trump and Leicester City got in common? Well it’s obvious, isn’t it? They are both defying the critics in their quests for glory.

Everyone has been waiting for the past six months for both of them to hit the wall and slowly drop out of the respective races for the Presidency of the United States of America and the Premier League title in England. But as I write (pre Super Tuesday), so far neither have. They just keep winning, which is leaving all but their loyal supporters scratching their heads with every passing caucus, every passing match.

Who’d have thought it? The President of the United States of America Donald Trump and Leicester City, Premier League champions. Has the world gone mad?

There is one difference between Leicester and Trump. Most people in these parts are rooting for Leicester. For Trump, not so much.