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I grew up in a family of story tellers. Both my parents read stories to us , Aesop, the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Anderson, Patricia Lynch, Charles Dickens, Canon Sheehan, Jerome K Jerome.

But the best was when my mother would turn off the light, gather us round the fire and thrill us with tales of the wee folk and changelings, and ghosts, of wily leprechauns and mischievous pookas. Or she’d poke up the fine and show us how the fall of a sod of turf formed a picture. And that would be the start off the tale of the great Bull of Cooley or of Finn and the Fianna out on a hunt, or of Cuchullain in combat or of Balor, the giant with the one evil eye.

But my mother was not the only story-teller in my young life. I had uncles and aunts, all of whom could all fashion stories from daily events and make them sound like exotic adventures. I reckon that I learned the secrets of telling stories at home, from my family without realising how lucky I was. Performing stories now, seems to me like a way of repaying the debt.

I perform regularly in Milk and Cookies and Yarnspinners as well as story festivals, arts festivals and frankly anywhere that will give me an audience. Many of the stories I tell are my own version of stories my mother told . I tell fairy stories, ghost stories, and stories of events that occurred in the not so long ago in Ireland.

Here’s the story of how Bridget and Michael finally got the electric.