Did I ever tell you about the time - Maltese Falcon Edition

ciaraheneghan9
Oct 2, 2025
4 min read

You are literally not going to believe this story but it is 100% true - unfortunately and ... hilariously.

I was a dancer for many years, trained professionally by some of the top choreographers and champions in the world, and at one point I decided to use my talents to become a podium dancer in clubs all around Ireland. I had a whole lot of fun doing this, and ended up dancing on a bar Coyote Ugly style, dancing in cages, and becoming a professional Can Can dancer.

During this time I met a lovely man, we'll call him Adam, and we fell madly in love. It was an idyllic romance. He was from Malta. Tall, dark, handsome, said all the right things - mostly, and I was as happy as a clam.

*Adam would come to some of my shows, we went for picnics on the beach in Dublin, we would go for long walks at night, read books together, have the biggest most philosophical and existential conversations you can imagine, and I loved it. It often felt like being in some sort of movie on a college campus in Paris. Yes, I have a very vivid and fanciful imagination ... then and now!

One glorious summer afternoon, during one of our beach picnics, when *Adam had brought champagne, all sorts of little culinary delights, and the most quaint checked blanket, just as we were sharing a passionate kiss, sunlight glistening on the water, our skin kissed with the heat, he pulled away, looked lovingly into my eyes and said ...

"I was speaking with my mother about you", I smiled a sweet smile thinking this lovely man had been telling his mother all about wonderful lil me. "And she said she sees a dark hole in your soul that needs to be filled with love ... BUT FIRST ... she said she thinks you need an exorcism and she is the ONLY exorcist left in my home town, and on our island" ............................................................

EXCUSE ME?

Now let me just back track a little and share with you that AT NO POINT in this entire dream romance had ANYTHING happened that was out of the ordinary. We hadn't even argued. Not even a raised voice. Nada ... just pure bliss. And I am not trying to romanticise it in hindsight, I really mean it, it was fabulous. But somewhere along the line, my Adam from Malta's mother decided I was not right for her 'little' boy and so ... EXORCISM TIME! Let me just share also that ... *Adam was 30 years old.

Now, while I was more flabbergasted than I had ever been in my whole natural born life, I was also trying not to laugh in his face BUT ... I failed miserably because, after the initial shock of what he said, I fell forward in a helpless fit of belly laughing that I just could not control. All the romance was gone from our beach date from heaven, and all that was left was me ... snorting with the giggles, trying to control myself enough to ask him some questions.

Once I had composed myself, I asked him the one question that was burning to be asked, "So *Adam, how does your mother think I have a hole in my soul and that I need an exorcism"? He looked me dead in the eye and said "Because beautiful, you do this dancing". I am not sure if its possible for you to begin to imagine how shocked I was that he and his mother had been discussing an exorcism for my dance career, but more importantly, how he thought I would go for it. I knew in that very moment that we were done and would never ever ever be getting back together.

To his amazement I leaned forward, rested my hand on his thigh and said, "we're done exorcism boy, tell your mom me and my dark holy dancers soul say hi", and I got up and walked away still laughing my ass off.

Most breakups end in someone being sad, this was not most breakups, and I was as far from sad as the sun is from the moon. I felt like I had dodged a number of bullets in one short and eye opening conversation. Thank God for beach dates and picnics, am I right?!

I always laugh out loud when I think about this story and I can remember it as if I was right there. I learned a lot in my time with my Maltese falcon and his desire to exorcise me:

Always fall in love fully, and injoy every second of it because ... you never know when someone's mother is gonna want to exorcise the life out of you!
The allure of a picnic beach date should always be entered into wholeheartedly, no matter what.
A mans relationship to his mothers truth can be the making or breaking of your relationship.
Never let another person tell you what to do with your life, no matter what their relationship is to you.
Dance like no one is watching but always consider ... the Maltese falcon could be, and he comes with baggage! ;)