Precious moments: Irish Examiner's Lifestyle team reflect on their 2024 highlights

We spent our summer huddled on the sofa, holding our breaths as we watched Whiffen in the water, Adeleke on the track, Harrington in the ring.

Together, we watched the ceremonies for our seven medal winners.

Watching the closing ceremony, the realisation dawning that my kids would be in their late teens by the time LA and Brisbane were over, I just knew. This was the moment.

I had covered the Olympics in Sydney for an Australian newspaper and knew that the atmosphere, the volunteering spirit, was every bit as glorious for the Paralympics. I wanted my daughters to feel that momentum.

But I had another agenda, too. As they get ever closer to their teenage years, a period when so many girls abandon team games, I also wanted to show them the power of sport. They had to see for themselves why it matters to turn up on the GAA pitch, the basketball court, the swimming pool, week in, week out.

Within an hour, we had an overnight trip planned — for less than the cost of a day trip to our capital.

A family ticket to the athletics, with Irish interest Greta Streimikyte on the track, cost less than €100. We spent our day taking selfies in front of the Olympic flame, and later, as we took our seats at Stade de France, we were all a little in awe.

And then the entertainment began: entertainers to whoop the audience, thumping music, flashing graphics, close-ups of the cheering crowd on the big screens. We rose to our feet, hands in the air, for Mexican waves that went on and on.

The girls all but roared as we left the stadium, the night of their lives.

We were back home more than 24 hours after we departed, huddled together again, watching the medal ceremonies, this time back on the TV.

Esther McCarthy, Life/Style editor

My aunt Ger’s son has only 3% kidney function. The 15-year-old is on dialysis four hours a day, three days a week, up and down to the incredible team in Temple Street. He is on a kidney transplant list. 

I’ve done the journey a couple of times with Kieran. He is positive, funny, stoic, resilient, uncomplaining. For a kid who’s had his whole world knocked sideways, he is managing it all incredibly well.

The Irish Kidney Association is a huge support to the family, so Ger decided to take part in the Cork Echo Women’s Mini Marathon in September to raise some funds for the organisation. She roped us all in, and I decided I might as well try to run it. My 15-year-old, with his fully functioning kidneys, said he’d help train me. 

I went from wheezing like a geriatric mime artist to being able to jog 5k without my smart watch automatically calling 999. The day itself was a joy — there was a gang of us with our luminous yellow IKA T-shirts.

We got our medals and our donations and were chuffed with ourselves. My boys were at the finish line to cheer me on. I hadn’t broken a sweat as I ended up walking and talking rather than running and gunning it, but they didn’t mind. It was one of my loveliest days of 2024. The celebratory pint afterwards wasn’t bad either.

Caroline Delaney, Outdoors editor

While on holidays overseas during the summer, I had a moment when I realised that my three teens were all currently underwater spotting fish and coral and other weird and interesting sea life thriving among rocks and around anchor blocks in a little bay.

It’s just a little thing but it’s definitely something it would have been good to know was achievable back on all those evenings spent wearing those awful blue elasticated shoe covers, shuffling around a steamy, crowded swimming pool changing room, trying not to lose goggles or let clothes fall on the floor. 

Knowing that a teenager is gone off along a bit of coastline on a kayak or paddleboard with a snorkel and some friends and that you can just chill with a book till they come back ravenous for pizza is actually a win that would have made all that swimming lesson rushing and chasing so much more bearable a decade ago.

Jillian Bolger, food and travel editor

In October 1992, I stood by The Quad at UCC, queueing as an eager fresher to register for my first day of university. I’d arrived down from Dublin on the train with Catherine, a pal from home. We knew no one in Cork and while waiting excitedly, wondering what lay ahead, found ourselves chatting to two other newbies, Ruth from Kilkenny and Nessa from Limerick. Fresh-faced freshers, we were all newcomers to Cork, all studying Arts, and several of our subjects overlapped.

This year, Ruth and Catherine turned 50. Ruth chose to celebrate with a gang of her girl pals at a beautiful waterside cabin in Finland with a sauna, hot tub and private jetty deep in the woods. For three memorable nights, we partied, swam, ate, sauna-ed, drank, danced and laughed on this tiny forested island.

For one of Catherine’s birthday celebrations, she chose a cosy weekend in the Burren, staying at the gorgeous Gregan’s Castle. This time it was just the original college crew reflecting a beloved annual tradition where we always take a winter weekend away together.

Strong, feisty, kind and funny, I love each of these amazing women like family. With 32 years of friendship under our belts, how can this rich, joyful bond and these birthday memories not be my highlight of 2024?

Nicole Glennon, assistant features editor

It will surprise no one who knows me to learn that my highlight was the weekend in June when Taylor Swift brought The Eras Tour to Dublin.

I spent Friday as a journalist outside the stadium, vox-popping fans, Saturday as a fan with friends — new and old — up in the rafters, and Sunday in the pit, a hair’s breadth from a songwriter who made me fall in love with writing as a child, as a reviewer for a national newspaper.

Easily the highlight of my 2024, but I suspect a magical time for years to come.

Anna O’Donoghue, social media editor

Throwing paint at a wall may seem like a bizarre personal highlight, but for me, it was. It was finally putting a stamp on my first home. Although keys exchanged hands in January, it wasn’t until May that I could move in and eye up my blank canvas.

I vividly remember buying a large canvas print in a night market in Thailand in 2012 and telling a friend it was for my “future house”. A feat I couldn’t even fathom happening but my heart was dead set on collecting little pieces of happiness along my travels, just in case it did.

Over the years, I have built up a collection of art, prints, interiors, and ideas that I love: my kitchen disco ball, gold monkey lamp, and Moroccan tiles, to name a few. I’m still in disbelief that this year I was finally able to find a home.

Mike McGrath Bryan, digital journalist

Wednesday nights this winter have been spent joining a small but mighty group of adult learners of Irish traditional music at the world-famous Kabin Studio. There, a team of teachers and facilitators helps kids and adults alike find their spark.

Assisted by local music education non-profit Creative Tradition, the adult lessons are a warm and welcoming space to learn feadóg, bodhrán and sean-nós singing from scratch - but also a lovely place to have the chats at the end of a long day.

Sharing the stage of their Christmas concert at Hollyhill Library with other adult learners, as well as the Kabin Crew of rappers, producers, and 81-year-old poet Maureen Cullinane, was a humbling experience.

Breda Graham, digital journalist

Standing outside the Gandeghütte in the Swiss Alps while taking in the sweeping views of the iconic Matterhorn mountain and surrounding peaks has to be my highlight of 2024.

We hiked hut-to-hut, covering a lot of ground and gaining a lot of height over the four days. We crossed the famous Europaweg Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge, the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge, passed through many valleys, and hiked the famous Five Lakes trail.

The weather had turned as I approached the Gandeghütte, which overlooks the Gorner Glacier, the third-longest in the Alps. 

It was cold and wet, and I was tired. I was also feeling the effects of the altitude. But I felt an overwhelming sense of pride and achievement when the hut came into sight.

After months of recovering from an ankle break and other health issues, many setbacks and subsequent cancelled plans, I had achieved my goal.

Rebecca Daly, digital journalist 

It was the first full day of my two-week holiday to Japan and Korea.

We had landed in Tokyo late the night before and had arranged to meet my brother, who now lives in the city, the next day at our hotel.

He walked us around his neighbourhood, showing us where he does his food shop and where he works. We walked the streets to his house, with the area looking exactly like something out of a Studio Ghibli film.

We later headed into Shibuya, one of the main tourist areas of the city, where we saw the famous Scramble Crossing and all of the huge stores – spending a significant amount of time in the Don Quijote megastore, an eight-floor discount shop, in particular.

The day was spent ooh-ing and aah-ing at everything: from the metro to the money, the toilets, food, gadgets, fashion and beyond. We didn’t even buy anything but it was enough to marvel at one of the city's busiest areas.

Martin Mongan, digital journalist 

I began a book reading marathon in July on a random afternoon. I decided to finish reading Roy Keane’s autobiography, which I started on a beach in Alicante a year prior.

I finished reading the remaining 100 or so pages in two days, and while shopping on my 26th birthday, I slipped away from my girlfriend to buy Keano’s follow-up ‘The Second Half’, which I polished off in less than two days.

Since then, I've picked up books from bookshops and charity shops, usually Manchester United or football-related. Now, I’ve branched out to Irish history books, such as ‘Say Nothing’.

My girlfriend jokes that my frontal lobe developed this year, which tends to happen when you turn 25. If that’s true, I’m a year late.

Irene Feighan, Feelgood editor

I’d Arthur’s Seat in my sights from day one of our summer break in Edinburgh. Would we, could we? I asked more than once.

I was surprised when my two sons, aged 23 and 17, finally agreed to climb the imposing volcanic hill. The youngest took off at speed — legs moving like a gazelle — the oldest adopted a moderate, steady pace while I trailed behind.

Up and up we went, barely pausing, while taking the most direct but steepest route. And, oh, the reward when we reached the summit: a panoramic view of the ancient city with the Firth of Forth stretching out to the North Sea.

Hillwalking was a big part of my life before I had children. It was an unforgettable experience to go climbing for the first time with my sons, who didn’t even break into a sweat.