Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

I was a rugby player with a great future behind me. A 35-year-old father of five with an expanding waistline who was trying to survive the bloody battlefield we call life. My son was locked in a violent turf war with a rival Love/Hate tour operator, my daughter was in love with a boy who looked like Justin Bieber and my old dear was about to walk up the aisle with a 92-year-old billionaire who thought it was still 1936. 

Sorcha had thrown me out of the family home - this time apparently for good. And yet that was the least of my worries. My old dear was in prison, accused of murdering her second husband. My sons were showing an unhealthy interest in - someone call social services - soccer! And my daughter wanted everyone to call her Eddie. On top of all that, a blond wig discovered in a dusty attic had given my old man delusions of power. Suddenly, he was running for election, promising to tear up the bailout deal and take Ireland out of Europe.

Life as a stay-in-bed husband turned out to be a lot more complicated than I expected. My wife was pregnant with a baby that possibly wasn't mine. My old man was engaged in a war with the feminist movement that he was never going to win. And my old dear was making a lot of unexplained trips to Russia. Throw into the mix an eldest son with a possible sex addiction and three infant sons who were so thick they made me look like Edward Einstein.

I've had some pretty bad New Year's Eves in my life. But this one was officially...The! Worst! Ever! My wife had just given birth to a baby that wasn't mine. My son had just walked out on his bride-to-be on the eve of their wedding. And my old dear was making threats of revenge against me for allowing her to choke on the olive from her breakfast martini. 

'If I've learned one thing,' the late, great Father Fehily used to say, 'it's that life, families and rugby balls don't always behave the way you want them to!' Looking at my life, I'd have to say, the dude wasn't wrong. My old man had been caught rigging a general election. My old dear was about to become a 70-year-old mother of six. And Honor was walking around in a yellow rain mac, telling everyone that the end of the world was coming. It was enough to drive a man to the brink.