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Short Stories

‘Do your parents know you’re here, El?’ ‘No, I told them I had exams, so they think I’m in Dublin.’ Orlaith gave a fish-mouthed Wow from the backseat, which only Declan could see in the rear-view mirror. El’s practised mendaciousness impressed him, even if it was unclear why her

Dan leaned closer into the picture as a couple pushed past behind him. Laughing at the framed photographs on the wall, they made their way along the gallery’s narrow landing. In their wake, voices and the waft of cheap wine welled once more up the stairs from the ground floor. Dan stayed a moment

I finally explain it to her as we walk by the lake. It’s a warm day. The sun glimmers off the soft waves and throws rippling stripes of colour over the boughs of the trees. Sparrows and moorhens call out over the rhythm of the rocking light. She says she’s heard of it before, but doesn’t qu

Traditions are not consciously created. A tradition is born and nurtured long before anyone sees it for what it is. It lies patiently in wait – for it has time – growing stronger and more difficult to remove. It has no fear of being discovered, for discovery is the final act of consummation. Tra

Jess hadn’t expected snow. Wasn’t that the point of the south-west? Wet, yes, but no snow, not like the Highlands or the Alps or somewhere. When they’d bought their idyll, their adorable little cottage with its roses round the door and windows peeping out beneath thatched eaves, when they’d

My grandmother took the bookies to the cleaners that last Christmas we were all together. They had it coming, she reasoned. She had placed the same bet every January 2nd for the previous seventeen years and never won a penny. The stakes that had begun at five shillings – cobbled together from c

If they knew we’d gone there, our grans would’ve tanned our hides for us. As they’d say. One of our mums had a brown leather bag she called ‘tan hide.’ Our mums were too busy, and too tired with work, to do more than yell at us. And our dads would’ve taken their belts to us. If they’d

The woods are lovely in this pink winter light, the setting sun glinting off snow and the bare branches like a Japanese painting. I needed to come back, to remember, to feel the ground beneath my feet. I padded downstairs, heard cooking sounds, clicked the door behind me, pushed open the garden g