Literature

Female child narrators are rare in Irish Literature, while the notable presence of the male childhood is enough to form a genre of its own.  Thus when Christine Dwyer Hickey’s Tatty was published to great acclaim in 2004, it was breaking…

Tuesday Night by Sarah O'Neill Sometimes I feel like we are two sailors lost at sea. Stranded for days, bodies slowly dissolving in salt, Overwhelmed by thirst, our lips a distant memory, We look at each other and it’s like, Jesus it…

St Rumbold’s Well In Memoriam of the Tuam Babies by Fiona Perry I was born in a field blazing with corncrake call A seed released from its casement.  The hedgerows ripped from top to bottom  When I burst into the light, entered  The…

Stop by Laura Rahill Stop. And listen. Don’t panic, but come home now. Time is waiting, impatient  for us all   to just stop. And listen. Have you ever really heard your heart beat before can you hear it now? Listen. Do the birds…

Justice by Dearbhla O'Reagan an elusive word. we love our missing acquaintance until the pain is ours and rioting is the cure we will not know. not 'til the men in suits hear our screams our begs then we will know. when graveyard…

Laundromat by James Croal Jackson I want to breathe dirty cigarette lungs into the bed grime you say it  is time to bless the sheets  with renewal so we spin  around the laundromat hand-in-hand do-si-do  though…

Restart the Engine by Paul McCarrick Discard any computer wires that kept you inside  during your teens or twenties, even the current timeline,  cut any cords that tied you down to tendencies of talking  about polygons, and other…

I once bought a book with the title, What’s Wrong with Eating People? It didn’t offer any notable enlightenment on its titular question, and was surprisingly dull, but it did plant the query stubbornly in my brain. It’s not that I’d…

Forever Searching by Alison McCrossan On these hills everything is backward – the clouds sink to the grass, pock-marked by hooves passing through,  my feet turn and twist, but I don’t care for at last, I have touched this summit.…

Teacher by James Whyte Your eye is still water, absorbing  the cloudy agitation of teenagers. Your ear holds their voices, the clang  of metal lockers echoing  in the dim corridors of your dreams. You know there is…