Don’t Look Back in Ongar

<p><b>The final instalment in the Ross O''Carroll-Kelly series</b><br><br><i><b>* * * </b></i><br>It looked like it was Game Over for the Rossmeister General.<br>I was staring down the barrel of the big four-oh! And what did I have to show for it?<br><br>I was an out-of-work rugby coach who was soon to be divorced. My old dear was sliding away in a nursing home in a certain suburb of West Dublin. And my old man had brought the country to the verge of, like, nuclear annihilation.<br><br>And if that wasn’t bad enough, my teenage daughter was in love again. My sister-in-law was about to give birth to a baby that was possibly mine. And Castlerock College was about to go – I can’t even say the word – co-ed.<br><br>People kept saying that we were facing Ormageddon. But I was like, ‘Hey, it’s not the end of the world.’<br><br>Because Father Fehily used to say, ‘Sometimes good things come to an end so that better things can come to a beginning.’<br><b>* * *</b><br><br>''Ross is a national institution'' <b><i>Irish Times </i></b><br><br>''One of the funniest writers in the land''<i> <b>Irish Independent</b></i> <br><br>''I hope this series runs for decades'' <b>Belfast Telegraph </b><br><br>''An extraordinary run of sustained comedic excellence . . . brilliant'' <b>Irish Times</b></p>