God’s Teeth and Other Phenomena

‘It is hard to think, that’s Kelman’s point, but you have to. Your freedom depends on it. The problem is that when you start to think, which is usually when the bad stuff starts to happen, when you fuck up or you get fucked, and who can say which comes first, you realise that the words you use to think are not your own, they have been shoved down your throat. You have to learn to think for yourself. In your own terms.’

Criticism 23rd February 2023

Butcher’s Dozen

Sean O'Reilly on the reissue of Thomas Kinsella's ‘Butcher's Dozen’ to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday: “a timely reminder that the past has to be fought for and poetry is not beyond lending a hand.”

Criticism Essay 25th January 2022

Didn’t You Have To Be There?

How a ‘blockbuster sci-fi contagion plot’ has caused one teacher to question the meaning and value of the traditional writing workshop.

Essay 26th June 2020

Safe Words

Embarrassment, unease, discomfort – these are the building blocks of a new language; the first steps on a path beyond the consoling myths of the everyday.

Essay Issue 39, Volume 2: Winter 2018-19

Downstream

Fiction Issue 31, Volume 2: Summer 2015 (The London Issue)

Roth Unbound

Criticism Issue 27, Volume 2: Spring 2014

The Cavalcade

Fiction Issue 26, Volume 2: Winter 2013

All Day And All Of The Night

Fiction Issue 20, Volume 2: Winter 2011 (The New York Issue)

A Life Apart

Criticism Issue 15, Volume 2: Spring 2010

Inherent Vice

Criticism Issue 14, Volume 2: Winter 2009

Kieron Smith, Boy

Criticism Issue 11, Volume 2: Winter 2008-09

What the Curlew Said

Criticism Issue 9, Volume 2: Spring 2008

Sean O'Reilly

Sean O’Reilly is the author of Curfew and Other Stories, Love and Sleep, The Swing of Things, Watermark, and Levitation. He is a member of Aosdána.