‘I watch myself and I know what I’m thinking. I watch myself and I also know what I’m not thinking. I watch myself and I know I’m thinking, a week ago we were together in that little cottage on the farm in Wales, and now she’s in A&E in the hospital down the road and I’m sitting here waiting for her laundry to finish.’
Colm O’Shea Fiction 13th September 2023
‘When I developed my illness and could no longer work, he took pity on me and gave me a room and an allowance.’
Camilla Grudova Fiction 9th August 2023
‘In the early days, people told me my disease disgusted them. They didn’t say it in those words—they used phrases like ‘I hope this email finds you well,’ but the implications were clear enough.’
Ed Garland Fiction 19th July 2023
A story from Mary O’Donoghue’s new collection, The Hour After Happy Hour.
Mary O’Donoghue Fiction 21st June 2023
P Kearney Byrne Fiction Issue 47, Volume 2: Winter 2022-23
James Ward Fiction Issue 47: Winter 2022-23
‘It is the day of my execution. From where I have been positioned on the stage, I cannot help admiring all the work that has gone into decorating the assembly hall.’
Leopold O'Shea Fiction Issue 47, Volume 2: Winter 2022-23
‘I have a habit of telling stories too fast, expecting a coherent narrative to spring up from a few words flimsily strung together on a string. The problem is words words words. The more neatly I arrange them, the more they lose their flavour.’
Cathy Sweeney Fiction 1st March 2023
‘I remember my uncle cutting his toe nails with a razor blade. I remember my father drunk from Sunday to Sunday. There has to be a monument to the failures as well.’
Michael J. Farrell Fiction 2nd February 2023
Contributors: Nicole Flattery, Niamh Mulvey, Najat Abed Alsamad, Gianluca Nativo, Louise Hegarty, Roisín O’Donnell, Lisa Owens, Oisín Fagan, Chetna Maroo, June Caldwell, with an introduction by Editor at Large, Thomas Morris
The Stinging Fly Essay Fiction 2nd January 2023
‘Something always came down like a guillotine to split her life in two, so that on one side was happiness, and on the other, the present.’
Chetna Maroo Fiction 14th December 2022
‘This was in Montpellier, in 2012. He was a legionnaire from Birmingham; his reclaimed name was Roger, and he was the most intelligent murderer I have ever met.’
Oisín Fagan Fiction 9th November 2022
‘The drawer beside Roberta’s bed contained remnants of other people’s fun: a small mother-of-pearl box, inlaid with gold, a lipstick that was a stripe of fuchsia, a lucky charm in the shape of a dollar sign.’
Wendy Erskine Fiction 21st October 2022
‘In the hours and days after seeing Eugene, I was particularly bad: sobbing uncontrollably, vomiting, roaring into the hell’s bells of night. I prayed for typhus, Asiatic cholera, plain old consumption, anything that would do the job for me. I had no way to impart how terrible and terrified I felt except to write it down.’
June Caldwell Fiction 5th October 2022
‘Her husband was asleep beside her, snoring gently, and she lay, breathing shallowly, planning her next move.’
Lisa Owens Fiction 7th September 2022
‘Marcello's not a guy who likes used underwear, old shoes or bare feet. He’s a perfectionist, or maybe just a hypocrite.’
Gianluca Nativo Fiction 10th August 2022
‘Over Zoom one night, a therapist tucks her dark hair behind her ears and introduces herself as Maeve. They are about the same age, in their late thirties. She doesn’t ask about Orla’s childhood, or root around for scars. She says, Tell me what’s happening.’
Roisín O’Donnell Fiction 17th June 2022
‘When the other kids made fun of him for the holes in his jumper or not knowing who He-Man was, he just looked out the window towards home, the big house up the road and down the lane.’
Niamh Mulvey Fiction 11th May 2022
‘I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t call my friends. Everyone has had a time like this—when they look in the mirror and, sure enough, an unknown animal stares back.’
Nicole Flattery Fiction 7th April 2022
Anam Zafar's translations of Najat Abed Alsamad's work offer shattering insights into everyday experiences of the war in Syria.
Najat Abed Alsamad Fiction 9th March 2022
‘I sit in my van and let it idle for a while, allowing the gentle hum of the engine to settle me. I take several deep breaths in. I don’t know why this has unnerved me so much. It is such a silly meaningless thing.’
Louise Hegarty Fiction 1st February 2022
Jacinta Mulders Fiction Issue 45/Volume 2: Winter 2021-22
"His mother had a choice between keeping the monkey or having the baby. She told the story often, in company, with a roll of her eyes and a helpless grin, as if this was the sore spot, the branching crossroads where her life had gone wrong. "
Sheila Armstrong Fiction 4th November 2021
'You talk and talk until you run out of breath and still when you get home there are things you wish you had said. Just once I would like to wake before myself and see what I am with my eyes closed.'
John Christopher Fiction 6th October 2021
‘Your mother’s on the radio,’ she said, ‘being racist.’ This had surprised me; the radio bit. My mother had an aversion to talk radio.
Danielle McLaughlin Fiction 1st September 2021
An archaeology student's chance encounter on a summer dig in Greece brings a private obsession full circle and provokes a reckoning with past occurrences.
Emer O'Hanlon Fiction Issue 44/Volume 2: Summer 2021
In this exquisitely written story of a relationship, two colleagues strike up a workplace rapport that will alter the course of their lives.
Lisa Owens Fiction Issue 44/Volume 2: Summer 2021
"They wore travel outfits, comfy and subtle. Tiny shorts and big hoodies in creamy colours. Shorts said: actual holiday. Hoodies said: chill, not like the other young ones going away, flashing bikinis at baggage claim."
Katie Curran Fiction 12th August 2021
'Sometimes I long for home, but not home as it is now, home back then. Back when it was nice. When the sun was always out, and we could play all day out of doors. Before I had to be a woman.'
Niamh Prior Fiction 7th July 2021
JL Bogenschneider Fiction Issue 44/Volume 2: Summer 2021
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