SHORT FICTION Belfast Noir Edited by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville Belfast, a city of conflicting allegiances and a dark and turbulent past, seems a perfect setting for Akashic’s latest “noir” anthology. Belfast Noir is presented as “an important snapshot” of the city’s burgeoning crime-writing community featuring stories from some of Ireland’s best-known crime writers includingRead more..
Irish short story writer and Mayo native Colin Barrett was recently awarded the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish literature for his new book, Young Skins. The event took place at the Provost House in Trinity College this past September. Barrett’s short stories have been greeted with enthusiasm from critics all over Ireland. Chris Power fromRead more..
Remembering Seamus Heaney. Lightenings viii The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise Were all at prayers inside the oratory / A ship appeared above them in the air. The anchor dragged along behind so deep / It hooked itself into the altar rails And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill, ARead more..
An Irishman in Coventry A full year since, I took this eager city, the tolerance that laced its blatant roar, its famous steeples and its web of girders, as image of the state hope argued for, and scarcely flung a bitter thought behind me on all that flaws the glory and the grace which ribbonsRead more..
Culdalee We took the winding road west from Aclair, arrived at where we thought the turnoff should be, the boreen so overgrown you’d hardly know it had ever been the way. We waded down through the uncut field, down the steep hillside to the wild valley below. Thankfully, the cottage still stood, looking much asRead more..
A short story by Edna O’Brien Thursday Mama and I have been invited to the Coughlans’. It is to be Sunday evening at seven o’clock. I imagine us setting out in good time, even though it is a short walk to the village where they live and Mama calling out to me to lift myRead more..
One of the best-loved poets, Emily Dickinson, counted her Irish caretakers among her friends. ℘℘℘ On May 15, 1886, Emily Dickinson died in her narrow bed in the Dickinson house in Amherst, Massachusetts where she had lived for all but 15 of her 56 years. Her elder bother Austin wrote in his diary: “It wasRead more..