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an appearance on RTÉ’s Daily Show . ‘Don’t put that in your hair. You’ll make a mess of it,’ my wife warned, forgetting that men are idiots. We’ll always press the button marked ‘Do Not Press This Button’. We’ll always stick a knife in the toaster when it’s plugged in.
    I emptied the bottle onto my head. ‘Two minutes is all it takes!’ the label said. I left it in for ten.
    My wife says the screams were up to The Exorcist level. My hair was black with red roots. I was a cross between Elvis and Bono. ‘It’s all YOUR fault,’ I shrieked, as she locked herself in the bedroom with the cat.
    I lathered Fairy liquid into it. I steeped it in lemon juice. It turned grapefruit pink. I shrieked some more.
    It took my wife’s hairdresser, Matt Malone, two days to rectify things. It still looks dyed though and I’m paranoid about it. The worst thing is when you catch someone staring at it and quickly looking away.
    There’s a lesson in this for all you fellow idiots who may be thinking of dyeing: don’t do it. I really miss my grey hair.
    The last straw came when I went for my first post-dye pint. A wag shouted: ‘You can’t come in here – it’s Just For Men.’
    I’m staying in until I go grey again. If anybody asks my wife where I am she’s instructed to say I’m at home, under the weather.
    Knowing me, they’ll probably think it’s Man ’Flu.

Was it for all this the men of 1916 fought and died?
    28 March 2010
    M y great-grandfather delivered Pearse’s farewell letter to his mother. As the fires crackled around the GPO, the rebel leader wrote: ‘Whatever happens to us, the name of Dublin will be splendid in history for ever. Willie and I hope you are not fretting for us ...’ He sealed the envelope and great-granddad kept it safe. By the time he delivered it, Pearse was dead.
    History sees Pearse’s sacrifice in terms of bloodshed. My great-granddad, Matthew Walker, saw it in the face of a mother who had lost two sons.
    You won’t have heard of Matthew. He was one of those remarkable figures who prefer to work behind history’s stage. You may remember from school that Parnell had lime thrown at his eyes during a rally. Matthew was the friend who shielded his face with his hat. Anonymous, forgotten.
    On Easter Monday 1916, Matthew – who was sixty-nine – walked eight miles from Glasthule to the GPO. He was dressed in full Edwardian fig of topcoat and top hat. He also had corns on his feet, but his generation ‘didn’t grumble’. He was determined to play his part.
    As he entered Sackville Street, Matthew would have seen the first casualties – two dead horses belonging to the lancers. He would have felt the giddiness of the slum bystanders waiting to see blood.
    He would also have seen a tricolour flying over the GPO.
    For Matthew – IRB man and publisher – Easter Monday was the culmination of his life’s work. He was given the task of printing Pearse’s Irish War News , as bullets ricocheted around the city. Each night, he bravely walked home through the cordons.
    His Abbey actress daughters, Maire and Gypsy, were ‘out’ in 1916 too. Gypsy, my grandmother, lost her pacifist lover to a looter’s bullet. A priest refused to marry the couple on his deathbed.
    Despite the pain, their generation valued sacrifice. Their selflessness seems very remote as you survey today’s Ireland.
    Last week, the tricolour Matthew may have seen over the GPO failed to sell at auction. It had been valued at $500,000. I wonder how he would have felt about this. After the week we’ve just had with Brian Cowen’s reshuffle and more turmoil with the banks, I wonder what he would make of the Republic he risked his life for.
    If he was publishing a newspaper today, Matthew’s editorial would probably compare our Taoiseach’s