The Blindboy Podcast - Stories to listen to with your family or on a Christmas walk

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

A relaxing, extra long podcast full of reflections and stories. I speak about the winter solstice, I read The Sniper by Liam O Flaherty and my own story The Pistills of the Dandelions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drol on the Lobey Goose, you Yuletide Q's Axe. Welcome to the plane by podcast. I'm recording this exactly. At 8.55 a.m. on Sunday the 21st of December. The winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. I'm here in my office. And if you're a long-time listener over the summer, You know, we had all that drama with the Starlings. And I used to try and record the podcast at sunset so that we'd hear the Starling murmuration. There's no Starling murmuration now because the Starlings aren't here. They're often their winter roast. But I'm recording the podcast right now at this very moment, the moment of the solstice.

The shortest day of the year. Because I'm thinking about No Grange. Like I'm down here in Limerick City looking up my office window. a chilly Christmas morning out there, thinking about the mulled wine I'm gonna make later. Well I don't actually mull wine. I mull apple juice. I get apple juice and sugar, cinnamon and cloves and all that shit. And I boil it in a pot and I leave it there bubbling away for the scent.

I ladle the mulled apple juice into my cup and then I pour the wine on top of that to cool it down, but also it's so you don't burn off the the alcohol. I want the violence of the alcohol that's in the red wine. Or you don't even have to use red wine. Put in a drop of whiskey, brandy, fucking port. Or maybe someone doesn't want alcohol at all so you just ladle them your mulled apple juice. It's the best way to do it. Orange juice works as well. Orange juice is a bit summery, isn't it? You're dealing with a hot sangria then. No one wants that. Apple juice. Muld apple juice is a perfect base. Fucking cider if you want. A bit of Linden

Village. Shit street drinking cider. Mould is fantastic. I'm going to end up wasting the salts this now talking about how to mull apple juice. Mould wine became a bit sinister for me a few years back.

Like it's a very comforting thing. It's not just about the taste, it's about the smell. But because your dissolving sugar your dissolving sugar into a liquid and boiling it

I'd a buddy a few years back a taxi driver and he had a childhood friend who'd spent about 15 years in prison he'd done something very serious and had spent 15 years in prison and when his childhood friend got out of prison

my buddy met him in like a petrol station cafe and was like fucking hell of how I haven't seen you in years. You've been away in prison for 15 years. Fucking hell, what's it like? And they sat down to meet for coffee in this petrol station.

Let's call him Christie and Jordan, right? Christy is the taxi driver. Jordan is the lad who's just after getting out of prison. So they're both sitting together in a boat, in a petrol station coffee shop. And Christy is talking to Jordan, going, fucking hell, what's it like being out? my god isn't mad seeing everything different 15 years is a long time

but Jordan is like distracted a little bit and he has his coffee Jordan's got his coffee that Christy's just bought him and Jordan is just putting in loads of sugar into his coffee like he's gone one packet two packets staring it in now he's gone to like five packets

of sugar and there's no way that this coffee is going to be tasty he's some people like sweet coffee this guy's gone too far now he's on to seven packs of sugar and Christy's trying to talk to him he's going the fuck you do him with all that sugar

why do you need all that sugar in your coffee and Jordan says there's a fella up there at the till and I owe him money and if he comes down here things might kick off so I just need this here and my buddy Christy like

who's innocent is just thinking you need what? A sweet cup of coffee? And then he realizes, oh my God he's making a weapon. He's dissolving so much sugar in his hot coffee that if he throws it in that man's face

that it might injure him enough that he can run away. And I think at now every time I'm mulling wine because I'm dissolving sugar in hot water and being incredibly aware of how dangerous sugar boils at a much higher temperature than water, you see. And it sticks to your skin, it retains heat. You don't want to get

burnt. You don't want to burn your skin with boiling sugar or water that contains a lot of dissolved boiled sugar. It's just dangerous. Getting burnt with sugar, with molten sugar is so serious that it's treated as a distinct clinical category in the burns unit. But apparently that's what they do in prison. The dissolved sugar into hot water and throw it into each other's faces. I'm going to I miss the solstice over this. It's already transitioning from darkness into light out there. So I'm here in my office looking out at Limerick City. The darkest dark of the year.

Limerick looks like the inside of an old dog's mouth. A child's nightmare about shadows. That's what Limerick is right now. You have to really seek out the aesthetic beauty in Limerick City at this time of year. And that's where my head. My head is up in New Grange. because right now up in New Grange some very lucky people

are gathering to witness the sun enter the passage tomb I'm conscious that most of the listeners of this podcast are scattered all around the world and mostly aren't Irish so up in

a place called Mead in Ireland we have a very large ancient tomb called New Grange and this it's over 5,000 years old so it's older than the pyramids right it's older than the pyramids in Egypt we have this massive tomb

that's over 5,000 years old up in Meath it's been messed around with it's been reconstructed doesn't look exactly as it did 5,000 years ago but the important bit the central chamber that's unchanged for 5,000 years

and what makes this ancient monument so important is that at exactly between 845am and 9am right now on the 21st of December the sunlight passes through this little

box on the road And then this beam of sun illuminates the whole tomb and reaches this stone at the back. And it's phenomenal because it means that people in Ireland 5,000 years ago had a very advanced knowledge of astronomy in order to be able to construct something that exact. And of course then it leaves us all with the big question of why, why were they doing this? Why did they build this? What was their belief system? What was the purpose? And we can only guess.

I mean, the closest thing that anything written down. There's a book called The Book of the Duncoe, which was written, I think around the year 1100, written by Irish monks. And there's a story in this book. I'll tell you really quickly. So there's a god by the name of, like the Dagda. And in Irish mythology, the Dagda is the, is like Zeus

the number one god the most important god the dog that lives in the other world but just beside New Grange there's a river a river called the boine

but the boine is named after Boan and Boan she was the goddess of this river which is just there by New Grinch but Boan

she's married to a human a human by the name of Elkmar and is a human with an important job. He's a human who has the capacity to

act as like a messenger with the gods. But anyway Dagda, the head God is like

fucking hell and O'Bohan is married but I really want to ride her. I really want to ride that woman and I want to get

her pregnant. But Dagda's gone. Right, okay, if I get her pregnant, then her husband, Elkmar,

he's going to be pissed. off because she's, you know, I'm a god and she's pregnant with my child. But if the husband finds out, he may attempt to terminate that pregnancy because it's not his kid. So Dagda, the high god is thinking, fuck am I going to do? How am I going to get her pregnant without him knowing? How long does it take? What is it, nine months?

What if I stop time? Well, I'm a god like, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, most important God? What if I can like manipulate time so that she gets pregnant, carries the child to full term, gives birth? But her husband who's a fucking human, he's a human, I just, I stop time for him so he doesn't know that nine months have passed. What if I do that? And in this 11th century myth. The Dagda. So he does it. He spends the night with Bowen, the goddess of the river born, has sex with her, gets her pregnant. And then it says he makes the sun stand still. So Elkmar, the human, who's bound by the laws of physics, time basically stops for him.

Time stops because the sun stands still. Then he wakes up. Boom. Now his wife is given birth. Giving birth to a child called Angus. Or Angus. And Elkmaire's like, how the fuck did that happen? I didn't even know you were pregnant. Where did that come from?

Holy fuck. So there's that one story from Irish mythology in the book of the Duncow written down in the 1100s. And because it says the Dagda made the sun stand still, that's the little marshal that we have that makes us think that maybe and the Salstice and the 21st up in New Grange when that sun comes in

and it illuminates that tomb at that one moment it's a way to stop time to capture the sun but here's the thing so that story's written in the 1100s that's like let's just say a thousand years ago but New Grange was built

5,000 years ago so you're relying on this story from a thousand years ago to see if it describes something 4,000 years ago and writing by that point in Ireland writing had only been around for 500 years and of course here's the other thing you know 21st of December

a god a god miraculously gets a woman pregnant and her husband is like where the fuck did you get that where have we heard that story before a little bit like the birth of Christ Christmas isn't it I mean Mary is just like

I'm pregnant Joseph where the fuck did you get that? Of God. So when you read that piece of myth about New Grange, you don't, the monks that were writing that down were there were Christian monks,

there were Christian monks, so you don't know how much of that story is legit, indigenous, oral Irish mythology or how much of it has been colored by the story of Christ and that's the bit you don't know.

Something archaeologists do know is that New Grange would have been built by a way of farmers from the Middle East that would have arrived to Ireland sometime around maybe 9,000 years ago around the area of Turkey, people who brought farming with them. So one theory about New Grange

like why did someone build this 5,000 years ago? Why did they engineer it so that on the shortest day of the year the sun penetrates a chamber? One plausible guess is and you can't tie it a little bit to that that story about Bohan and Dagda, that maybe it was the sun, the sun is the God, and the sunlight enters down that passage to fertilize the womb of the earth. Humans with agriculture, humans with farms, growing crops, whose entire survival depended upon the fertility of the land next year, that this was so important to survival that this was so important to survival that

that they'd come about with rituals going, we need to guarantee this fertility. So we're going to try and capture, we're going to try and capture the sun and facilitate it penetrating the earth, the goddess of the earth, in the same way that they might be facilitating their fucking cattle, riding each other.

So that's what I'm thinking about right now in Limerick City on the 21st of December. And just at the moment that I recorded that there, and told you that mythological story the solstice has happened it's brighter outside and I know that just as I was telling that story the sunlight passed

into that chamber in New Grange and illuminated it and the sun stood still for a little while and a new sun was born because it's the solstice today is the shortest day of the year but tomorrow tomorrow the daylight will be slightly longer than today

so what just happened there new light was conceived brightness was born the days are going to get longer and longer and longer till eventually a couple of months away the starlings will return to Limerick City and do their evening shits when it's bright at 8 or 9 o'clock in the afternoon

I want it to do I'm conscious that you're listening to this on Christmas Eve and I didn't want to miss a week I never want to miss a week because I'm thinking I know most people are going to be too busy to bother their fucking arse listening to my podcast

on Christmas Eve but it's not about most people I want to put out a podcast for the people who are just like it's Wednesday it's Wednesday and on Wednesday I listen to Blindbuy not everyone does Christmas not everyone has family to be around you can't assume that this period is happy for everybody

for some people it brings about loneliness isolation for the most part I don't like Christmas because of how disturbing it is to my routines I want to put this podcast out for the people who are like it's it's Wednesday it's Wednesday and on Wednesdays I listen to Blindby I'd rather not interrupt that consistency but I would like you to meet me halfway I want it to take it a bit of time off at Christmas

rather than writing and preparing a big giant hot take that I could take a few days off to do fuck all. That's what I want to do over Christmas. I'm going to see my family and I want to do fuck all so I don't have a big giant hot take this week. I have something I wanted to reflect on. By far the biggest thing that happened me this year

it was winning that Grierson award winning that award for my documentary Blind by the Land of Slaves and Scholars. I wasn't expecting to win it I can't believe even got fucking nominated it's really wonderful because it means that I'm probably going to get to make more

documentaries I'm going to get to make more documentaries and because I'm now a Grierson Award winner I get to have more creative control and more say and more autonomy around what documentaries I make and that helps me move towards

a singular autorial voice so that's wonderful and I'm very grateful for that but when I won that award I spoke a couple of weeks back about how dangerous awards can be not just awards but any type of external praise anything that reduces you to a little achievement the best music doesn't always win awards the best documentaries the best books don't always win awards

what does the best mean I love pieces of art that other people think or shit. And pieces of art that other people adore, I'm not into. There's no competition when it comes to creativity. You can only be the best version of yourself. Compete with yourself all you want. But things like reviews, like really good reviews, awards, they're more relevant to capitalism than they are to actual art, self-expression, creativity. Creativity art and self-expression shouldn't be reduced to numbers or awards or first place. second place. It's not relevant. I remind myself of these things to to maintain humility, to have

humility because humility is required in order to play. And that's what writing and creativity is playfulness. It's fun. It's enjoyment. It's the bit in the middle. And humility is very important for that. When you have humility, you're not afraid to fail. But I spoke about all this a couple of weeks back and a lot of people mailed me and we're like, well, what do you allow yourself to be happy about then blind boy? If you actively don't take awards on board or good reviews on board or if you're cautious about these things, then surely there is stuff that you take on board. I do. One of them is the reason I'm showing up this week, the reason I'm showing up this week to do a podcast because I know that there's people who just want their Wednesday podcast

so I'm showing up to deliver that as duty. I could take a week off but I won't because I'm so grateful to have this wonderful job. The other bit of external praise that I do take on board and it just it makes me feel absolutely wonderful. My favorite thing, my favorite piece of information that I received this year. Happened last week. A teacher, school teacher by the name in Nile, who teaches higher level English in a high school in Edinburgh over in Scotland, Hawley Road High School. His class had been studying my short story, a short story I wrote in my last book. The story is called The Pistols of the Dandelions. If you want to hear it, it's there as a podcast from about two years ago.

But my collection of short stories topography, I have a story in this book. It's about a group of stray cats. Two generations of stray cats that live in wasteland at the back of a being queue in Limerick from their life to their death. And this class of students

were, they're higher level English, they're teenagers, so they're probably between 15 and 17. They've been studying that story. and responding to it with essays and drawings and this teacher Nile sent me photographs of this and the students in the class were asking him I wonder we'll blind by see the drawings that we did

to respond to his short story I wonder will you acknowledge it and yes I will the nothing makes me happier than that and I want to say thank you to all all those students in Holy Road high school in Edinburgh I adored seeing your drawings and thank you so much for taking the time

to read my story and to respond to it it means the world to me and I tell you why it means the word to me and why it's more important than an award or a good review or book sales or fucking anything sorry for Carson I know you're 17 Asher look what are we going to do? I wasn't

I was not very good at school school was not an enjoyable place for me. I difficulty paying attention. I was distracted. Because of this, the curriculum, the things that I was learning every single day eventually became a source of pain. And I was consistently reminded, feeling like a failure, because I'm not paying attention. Looking at all the other kids around me who are able to pay attention, who are able to respond to their work, to do their homework, to behave themselves, to sit still. and just feeling different and evaluating myself as a failure. I mean, this too is related to my fear, my fear of winning awards or getting good reviews. When I get an award or when I get a good review,

I'm right back in school. I'm right back in school and the teacher is telling me I'm a good boy. And when the teacher tells me I'm a goodbye, for one day I feel worthwhile. And then I fail again. and I fail again because I now know I was an autistic kid in a school that was built around norotypical needs so I was set up for failure and in Ireland at the time you know I was doing the leaving cert at the end of the leaving search you get your leaving cert points and you are reduced

to a number and some students in Ireland like they get 600 points and above and when a student in Ireland gets 600 points they make it into the newspaper or sometimes on the the evening news. So we're all reduced to these numbers in Ireland at the end of school. I failed my leave insert. I didn't even get a number. And I internalised that as being

utterly and absolutely worthless. And parts of the system tell you that if you don't get a leave insert you are fucking worthless. But throughout this difficulty in school there were certain moments that shunned through and give me deep happiness

and meaning. And a big one for me was when we'd be doing English and there might be a short story that we're studying in class that really sticks with me. Whatever this story did, for once I'm able to pay attention in class and enjoy what's happening. And one such short story I'd have been 15. It was a short story called The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty who was a wonderful Irish writer. And that story made school, made the classroom feel enjoyable. I wasn't fidgeting, I wasn't distracted, I wasn't misbehaving. I'm here in class listening to this astounding short story. Can't wait to hear what happens next. And it's impacting me and shaping who I am. And the reason it means so fucking much to me to have those kids over in

Scotland studying my short story that the pistols of the dance is, I would not have written that story as an adult without the work of Liam O'Flaherty. I wrote that as a Liam O'Flaherty type story because Liam O'Flaherty had a wonderful way of writing nature. He was from the Aran Islands. He was born, I think, in like 1890, maybe. And he grew up in the Aran Islands and Liam O'Flaherty would write about animals. and he'd do it in the third person and the voice that he would take

often with third person we say it's the voice of God you know this like who who is when you read a story and it's in third person you're asking yourself who is the narrator here and Liam O'Flaherty used to write you know in a way he did write in the voice of God in the very Irish understanding of God I'm going to go back to the 8th century

entry to an Irish monk called John Scotus Erejuna, who I've mentioned before. John Scotus Erejuna was an Irish philosopher and monk, and he made it his life's work to try and figure out what God was. He wrote a multi-volume book called On the Division of Nature, trying to figure out what God is. And what John Scotus Erejuna did is while trying to figure out what God was, he started to go, Oh, I noticed the rivers have some type of connection with the birds and the birds have a connection with the insects

and the sun has a connection with the soil and in trying to find out what God is in the 8th century he basically figured out what an ecosystem is John Scotus Erijuna is the originator of modern ecology he figured out there's an ecosystem nature exists and everything is connected

he just called that God what Liam O'Flaherty when he was writing his short stories about animals he writes in the very uncaring voice of nature his third person he writes from the perspective

of the ecosystem and that's that's what I when I wrote that short story the pistols of the dandelions those kids are studying in Edinburgh I used that same third person

who is the third person narrator here. It's the ecosystem. And very sad and cruel things happen to those cats in that story. And I make sure at all times when I'm writing in that third person

to not have any emotion or judgment there. The neutral, uncaring voice of the ecosystem because the ecosystem doesn't give a shit. Life is suffering. Pain and suffering. exists for all creatures on this earth.

So the ecosystem is uncaring. But when you write a story in third person uncaring ecosystem, it's being read by human beings. And we do care. So that neutral tone, there's a scene in my short story where, I don't want to ruin it for you. Very cruel things happen to cats in this story, okay?

It does need a bit of a trigger warning, to be honest. But when the third person voice is very neutral and uncaring, then the emotion has to happen in the reader. The reader then is placed into a dilemma where you want to try and intervene. So now you're engaging with the text in a very participatory way. And I learned that from Liam O'Flaherty. I learned that from the writer Liam O'Flaherty. and I wouldn't

care about Limo Flaherty know about Limo Flaherty or be impacted by Lema Flaherty only for I was 15 and that story the sniper

when I heard it stuck with me forever and made school enjoyable and to take things back to the theme of the solstice you know

the sun penetrates no Grange and now no life his barn, the days start getting longer. I was a 15 year old kid in school, fucking fading it, hating it. And Liam O Flaherty's story made it into my classroom. The light of his art made me feel wonder and hope. And something was conceived that day. He inspired me and it gestated inside me for decades. And now I'm an adult

professional writer and I've written a short story inspired by that which is being studied by teenagers in a school over in Scotland and I know that one of them 10 years in the future is just going to have their little moment where they're going to go remember that story about the cats in school and they might remember the name of the author or the name of the book but it doesn't matter what when art impacts you at that age at the teenage years it can have a lasting impact on your life and hopefully hopefully might inspire someone to create their own art like Liam O'Flaherty did for me so that genuinely makes me happy that makes me happy it makes me feel proud it makes me

emotional and it gives me a great great powerful feeling of of meaning and purpose sometimes awards and shit can leave they can leave you feeling with a little bit of, is this it? I worked all, I worked this hard just to get this thing, this award, is this it? Do I get my prize now? Is this the prize? Why don't I feel happy? I've worked all my life to get this thing,

this award or this piece of approval, this external thing. Why don't I feel happy? I have the thing. Because it's bullshit. It's nice. You won't find happiness in external achievement or external approval.

That's the great lie. happiness comes from meaning and purpose meaning and purpose and I get a huge huge amount of purpose and meaning from the enjoyment of making a piece of work and then seeing a bunch of teenagers in school in fucking school

who likes school seeing a lot of teenagers in school responding to a piece of creativity that I did responding to a short story and now they are drawing pictures from things that impacted them in that story and writing essays about things that impacted them in that story. That's meaning and that's purpose and that that's the real fucking deal. That does bring happiness. That brings legitimate happiness and it's a happiness that's rooted in humility. And also I get to pay respects to to fucking Liam O'Flaherty who's one of the

greatest writers that Ireland has ever had and most of his work is out of print. I mean, everyone knows the sniper. If you, if you went to school in fucking Ireland, you studied the sniper because it's such a simple, brilliant, perfect little short story. But reading the sniper in school at 15, I was penetrated by the sunlight of art and something was conceived within me at that moment and it grew inside me and nourished and informed my own creative voice and I was able to make a piece of work that was good enough that an English teacher is like I'm going to I'm going to teach this to my kids I'm going to teach this to my students I think this would be relevant to them that they'd respond to it so that means more than anything

in the whole world so what I'm going to do this week is a little special extended Christmas treat for people who need a voice over the Christmas time or you just want to get out of the house and have a fucking walk

I'm going to do the ocarina pause and then afterwards I'm going to reiji Liam O'Flaherty's short story the sniper and then I'm going to

follow that up with the full length version of my own short story the pistols of the dandelions and give you a nice long podcast that you can dip in

and out of as you please so I don't have my Macarena this week but what I do have you know because it's Christmas I have a vape

now I haven't I stopped vaping I'd say nearly a year and a half ago like regular vaping but if I drink a little bit of alcohol and I start seeking out that nicotine I'll have a little pull off of vape

because it's better than it's better than cigarettes It's better than fags I want to avoid smoking fags at all costs But A couple of cans and a vape Every so often I don't even drink cans that much anymore

Too old The hangovers are too bad Hangovers are way too bad So I drink alcohol about Maybe four times a year Five times a year But I'll definitely have some gentle cans Over Christmas for sure

I got some It's a little selection box of Belgian trappist beers that came with a free glass a novelty glass and I listen to a lot of new jack swing okay here's the vape pause

you glorious cunts you'll hear a few adverts you can't even hear my vape I've got a fucking limiter on just a little bit of silence for some adverts alright that's enough support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page,

patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you mirth, merriment, entertainment, whatever has you listened to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly via the Patreon page because this is my full-time job, it's how I earn a living, it's how I pay all my bills, rent out my office, pay for the equipment, the whole shabang. It's how I have the time to deliver a podcast each week. So if you're a regular listener

and you enjoy it, please consider paying me for that work. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. And if you can't afford it, that's fine. Listen for free. You listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

Everybody gets a podcast. I get to earn a living. Most importantly, it means we get to keep this listener are funded. No one's, no one's steering my content in any way. I'm not worried about how many people are listening. I'm not worried about being popular. I want to show up each week and enjoy the process. Do what I love doing. Be curious and do whatever feels right. Social media is collapsing also so if you enjoy this podcast, recommend it to a friend. Recommend the podcast to a friend. That's the best thing you can do. Let's plug a couple of gifts.

If you're listening to this on Christmas Eve, it's not too late to get a present of a gig ticket for a friend, for a 10-foot Declan, for a steaming queva. So my first gig of 26 is going to be on the 23rd of January in beautiful Waterford there at the Theatre Rile. Then on the 31st, I'm above in Kildare, Nays, at the spirit of Kildare Festival in a tent. A tent in Nays. Why not? Then, Wednesday the 4th of February, there I am up at Vickers Street there in Dublin. That is very nearly sold out. Very, very few tickets left for that Vickr Street gig.

It's a wonderful Wednesday night gig. It's going to be a banger. Then I'm up in Belfast on the 12th of February at the Waterfront Theatre. Trickling down to Galway on the 15th in Leisureland. Yum, yum, let's have some Galway. then the Ainek Theatre in Killarney where I stay in a broom closet before I go on stage I'm looking forward to the humility of that

Then March we're over to Carlo Cork at the Cork The Cork Podcast Festival How many years have I been doing the Cork Podcast Festival About five fucking years I can't pronounce it The Park Podcast The Cork podcast festival down there in Cork In fucking March

on the 26th of March April Castle Blaney I don't know if that's announced yet is it fuck it then Limerick Good old Limerick City on the 9th of April

2026 Then what have I got anything Big Giant Tour of England Scotland and Wales in October fucking October 2026 Alright Long way away but these gigs are setting out fast Right

This is October October 26, Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, in the Barbican, can't wait to do the Barbican, Glasgow, Gateshead, Nottingham, I accidentally told someone last week I'm doing Edinburgh, I'm not. England, Scotland and Wales tickets, you'll get them there on the Fane.co. UK forward slash blindby and then the other gigs will get them on my own website. The Blindby Podcast.org, assuming it's working. Now I'm going to give you a little special Christmas treat. First I'm going to read you a short story

by the wonderful Liam O'Flaherty. And this short story is called The Sniper. Liam O'Flaherty, born in 1896, the Iron Islands. I mean, one of the greatest Irish fucking writers, in my opinion the best short story writer the best Irish short story writer

a phenomenal life he was in the Irish volunteers which is not the IRA but before the IRA the Irish volunteer army he saw combat

he was a revolutionary Liam of Flaherty founded the Irish Communist Party he did all this in his 20s this short story The Sniper This is about the Irish Civil War There was the Irish War of Independence

which was 1918 to 1920 where the IRA fought the British forces in Ireland in bloody guerrilla combat and the British surrendered ending 800 years of colonisation for 26 counties on the island. But here's the thing. What about the six counties up north? What

about the north of Ireland? Well a lot of people said what about the north of Ireland and then in 1922 the IRA split in two. One half became the army of Ireland, the army of the free state and the other half became the anti-treaty IRA and the Irish Civil War lasted for 10 months. where IRA people who had fought alongside each other were now suddenly fighting against each other in a small fucking country where everyone knows each other and that was the Irish Civil War

and it was vicious and this short story, The Sniper O'Flaherty wrote it while the Civil War was going on he had it published while the Civil War was going on and it was his first piece

have published fiction and it's a very simple short story that follows an IRA sniper during the Battle of Dublin as he stalks a free stage soldier. It's simple, it's beautiful, it's concise and when I read it in school at 15 years of age it opened up my horizons and showed me the possibilities of what writing can do, of what writing can be. So this is the The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty. The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon

that shunned through fleecy clouds, casting a pale light as of approaching dawn over the streets and the dark waters of the Liffey. Around the beleaguered four courts, the heavy guns roared. Here and there throughout the sea, city, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically. Like dogs, barking on

loaned farms, Republicans and freestaters were waging civil war. On a rooftop near O'Connell Bridge, a Republican sniper lay watching. Beside him lay his rifle and over his shoulders was slung a pair of field glasses. His face was the face. of a student, thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold gleam of the fanatic. They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who was used to looking at death. He was eating a sandwich hungrily. He'd eaten nothing since morning. He'd been too excited to eat. He finished the sandwich and taken a flask of whiskey from his pocket. He took a short draught. and then he returned the flash to his pocket

he paused for a moment considering whether he should risk a smoke it was dangerous the flash might be seen in the darkness and there were enemies watching he decided to take the risk placing a cigarette between his lips he struck a match

inhaled the smoke horridly and put out the light almost immediately a bullet flat itself against the parapet of the roof. The sniper took another whiff and put out the cigarette. And then he swore softly and crawled away to the left. Cautiously he raised himself and peered over the parapet. There was a flash and a bullet whizzed over his head.

He dropped immediately. He'd seen the flash. It came from the opposite side of the street. He rolled over the roof to a chimney-sack in the rear and slowly drew himself up behind it, until his eyes were level with the top of the parapet. There was nothing to be seen, just the dim outline of the opposite house top against the blue sky.

His enemy was undercover. Just then, an armored car came across the bridge and advanced slowly up the street. It stopped on the opposite side of the street, 50 yards ahead. The sniper could hear the dull panting of the motor, his heart beat faster. It was an enemy car. He wanted the fire, but he knew it was useless.

His bullets would never pierce the steel that covered the grey monster. Then around the corner of a side street came an old woman. Her head covered by a tattered shawl. She began to talk to the men in the turret of the car. She was pointing to the roof where the sniper lay, an informer. The turret opened, a man's head and shoulders appeared, looking towards the sniper. The sniper raised his rifle and fired. The head fell heavily on the turret wall.

The woman darted towards the side street, the sniper fired again. The woman whirled around and fell with a shriek into the gutter. Suddenly from the opposite roof a shot rang out and the sniper dropped his rifle with a curse. The rifle clattered to the roof. The sniper thought the noise would wake the dead. He stooped. To pick his rifle up, he couldn't lift it. His forearm was dead.

I'm hit, he muttered. Dropping flat onto the roof, he crawled back to the parapet. With his left hand, he felt the injured right forearm. The blood was ozen through the sleeve of his coat. There was no pain, just a deadened sensation, as if the arm had been cut off. Quickly, he drew his knife from his pocket, opened it up on the breastwork of the parapet and ripped open the sleeve. There was a small hole where the bullet had entered, on the other side there was no hole.

The bullet had lodged in the bone. Must have fractured it. He bent the arm below the wound, the arm bent back easily. He ground his teeth to overcome the pain. Then taking out his field dressing, he ripped open the packet with his nose. knife. He broke the neck of the iodine bottle and let the bitter fluid drip into the wound. A paroxysm of pain swept through him. He placed the cotton wadding over the wound and wrapped the dressing over it. He tied the ends with his teeth and then he lay still against the parapet

and, closing his eyes, he made an effort of will to overcome the pain. In the street beneath all was still. The armoured car had retired speedily over the bridge, with the machine gunner's head hanging lifeless over the turret. The woman's corpse lay still in the gutter. The sniper lay still for a long time, nursing his wounded arm and planning escape. Mourning must not find him wounded on the roof. The enemy on the opposite roof covered his escape. He must kill that enemy, and he could not use his rifle. He had only a revolver to do it, and then he thought of a plan. Taking off his cap, he placed it over the muzzle of the rifle, and then he pushed the rifle slowly upward over the parapet until the cap was visible from the opposite side of the street.

Almost immediately there was a report, and a bullet pierced the centre of the cap. The cap clipped down into the street. Then, catching the rifle in the middle, the sniper dropped his left hand down over the roof and let it hang lifelessly. After a few moments, he let the rifle drop to the street, and then he sank to the roof, dragging his hand with him. Crawling quickly to his feet, he peered up at the corner of the roof. His rose had succeeded. The other sniper, seeing the cap and rifle fall, thought that he had killed his man. He was now standing before a row of chimney-pots, looking across, with his head clearly silhouetted against the western sky.

The Republican sniper smiled and lifted his revolver above the edge of the parapet. The distance was about fifty yards. A hard shot in the dim light, and his right arm was painting him like a thousand devils. He took a steady aim. His hand trembled with eagerness, pressing his lips. together, he took a deep breath through his nostrils and fired. He was almost deafened with the report and his arm shook with the recoil. And then when the smoke cleared, he peered across and uttered a cry of joy. His enemy had been hit. He was reeling over the parapet in his death

agony. He struggled to keep his feet, but he was slowly falling forward as if in a dream. The rifle fell from his grasp, hit the parapet, fell over, bounded off the pole of a barber's shop beneath and then clattered on the pavement. Then the dying man on the roof crumpled up and fell forward. The body turned over and over in space and hit the ground with a dull thud. Then it lay still. The sniper looked at his enemy, falling and he shuddered. The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse. The sweat stood out in beads on his forehead, weakened by his wound in the long summer day of fasting and watching on the roof. He revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of his dead enemy.

His teeth chattered. He began to gibber to himself. Cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody. He looked at the smoking revolver in his hand and with an all-reliven. He hurled it to the roof at his feet. The revolver went off with a concussion and the bullet whizzed past the sniper's head. He was frightened back to his senses by the shock.

His nerves steadied. The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed. Taking the whiskey flask from his pocket, he emptied it in a draft. He felt reckless under the influence of the spirit. He decided to leave the roof now and look for his company commander to report. Everything around was quiet.

There wasn't much danger in going through the streets, so he picked up his revolver and put it in his pocket, and then he crawled down through the skylight to the house underneath. When he reached the laneway of the street level, he felt a sudden curiosity as to the identity of the enemy sniper, who he'd killed. He'd decided that he was a good shot, whoever he was

he wondered did he know him perhaps he'd been in his own company before the split in the army he decided to risk going over to have a look at him he peered around the corner

into a Connell street in the upper part of the street there was heavy firing but around here all was quiet the sniper darted across the street a machine gun tore up the ground beneath him with a hail of bullets but he escaped.

He threw himself face downwards beside the corpse and the machine gun stopped. Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother's face. So that's the sniper by Liam O'Flaherty in 1923. I mean I read it now as an adult it doesn't have the impact that it had on me when I was 15

and another thing with that story that you've got to realise I suppose it's like it's like trying to listen to the Beatles the story is so novel and revolutionary for the time and brilliant that it's been copied over and over again to the point that some of it feels a bit like cliche now and it's very difficult we've all seen

Hollywood movies of snipers and it's been exactly like that story a fucking American sniper by Clint Eastwood which is disgusting yank propaganda um saving private Ryan has a lot of sniper stuff in it we're actually visually off A

with a lot of the stuff in that story the use of a decoy video games so it's difficult to truly appreciate the intensity and that's the real fucking deal

that's someone who's seen combat that that's that's someone writing and speaking from experience while a civil war is currently happening

that's that's NWA that's ICE T that's public enemy that's what the fuck that is that's it that's gangster rap that's what that short story is

but it's like Liam of Flaherty's cousin as well was the John Ford, the very, very, very famous American director was Liam O'Flaherty's cousin who, I think he adapted one of Liam O'Flaherty's stories. But I just wanted to read that for you.

I wanted to read it because I read that when I was 15 and I really cared about being in school that day and I really loved being in school that day. And school made me, feel like how I felt when I'd go home and listen to ice tea and listen to public enemy. I felt like school was a place that I belonged in when I read that story in Junior Cert English

when I was 15. It stayed with me and it came back to me six or seven years. Six or seven years ago, when I rediscovered the short stories of Liam O'Flaherty, when I started to read his other work, I mean, that's not my favourite Liam O'Flaherty story. My favourite Liam O'Flaherty work is his nature writing. Liam O'Flaherty, like most of his short stories are about animals. He'd write a short story like the cormorant, which is, it's a story about a little cormorant on a cliff and a goat knocks a rock from the top of the cliff and it breaks the cormorant's leg the cormorant is injured and tries to rejoin its flock but it's dying and then the entire flock rejects it. Beautiful piece of work and you'll have difficulty trying to

fucking find it because for some reason so much of his his work is out of print which is a crime but anyway that's what I wanted to share this week and I wanted to reflect on gratitude meaning process this is the shit that matters to me and I'm going to leave you with because I want a nice long podcast this week I want you to be able to dip in and out what I'd love what I'd absolutely love but you don't have to do it if you don't want to I'm going to leave you with my own short story which I wrote two years ago in my collection topographia hibernica this story is called the Pistols of the Dandel it's a heavy story

I'm going to give you a content warning for violence towards animals in the story if you're not into that you don't want to even want to hear that go for a walk go for a Stephen's Day walk for an hour listen to this story or what I would love

if you have the type of family if you have the type of family in relationship with your family where instead of turning on the television or instead of whipping out your phones. If you just want an hour to sit back and listen to me read this short story, have a go of that because we don't do that anymore.

And even though I write for the page, I come from the oral tradition. I'm an oral storyteller and that finds its way out in my short stories. And sitting around with your family by the fire in silence. with no distractions, and listening to a story, listening to another human tell you a story. Oral storytelling is one of the oldest stable social technologies that humans have. Writing is very recent, but we've been behaviourally modern for 50,000 years. 50,000 years ago there was people with the exact same brains as me and you. me and you, and they were telling stories, and they couldn't write it down, they were telling

stories. It's a fundamental part of being a human being. The capacity to have language, to share and understand, and to listen, and to take information in, and listening to a story as a group with your family in silence, doing that one thing, listening to a story, it synchronizes your fucking nervous system. And it brings about... a sense, a feeling of meaning, a feeling of meaning, television doesn't do it, YouTube doesn't do it. Listening to the human voice tell you a story as a group is, it's deeply powerful and it's part of who we are as human beings.

We don't do it anymore. We don't really have space for it anymore. So if you have the type of family on Christmas Day, what I mean by that is if you've got a brother who's, without a doubt, going to start interrupting, that's just going to fuck it up. for everybody. If you have a nephew

who's definitely taken out TikTok and playing loud videos, just don't bother. But if you think that you have the type

of family where you can actually sit around and say, let's listen to a short story for an hour, that would be hugely

rewarding and meditative and contemplative and it'd give you something to talk about and reflect on afterwards. And it's much

more rewarding than if you just fucked off by yourself and listened to this story by yourself the communal sharing of listening to a story is way more rewarding but don't chance it unless you think you can put it off you need to have the type of family that's going to be comfortable with that with sitting in silence for an hour right I'm going to leave you with this short story

the pistols of the dandelions yes I read it out three years ago but we're up to nearly five hundred podcasts and I can't assume that everyone's heard every single podcast so hopefully some of you are hearing this for the first time I'll catch you next week I don't know what with

but in the meantime dog bless and here is the Pistols of the Dandelines I wouldn't have written this without reading Lema Flaherty it's as simple as that and I won't explain anything else other than just go straight into it

The Tomcat's penis was barbed with backwards carotinized spines. This made the chytis incredibly painful for their mother. She had been in heat and made it with two other tom's that day. This one had long white fur and different coloured eyes. His two front canines lodged into the marmalade tabby hair at the back of her skull. She howled an agonising wail. He withdrew and attempted to do that. to scrape out the semen of the previous male using his barbs. His efforts were not successful.

They were born under a purple morning sun in a nest of styrofoam and rags assembled by their mother in a tarmac wasteland against the back wall of a corrugated hardware store. The type of yellow land you see with the side of your eye between the retail parks or cars dump washing machines, brother and sister conceived by two different fathers a rare thing but still natural within the super fecund

reproductive system of cats the female kitten came out a brilliant black almost blue with the tiger patterns of an orange tabby revealing itself across her belly her brother was born piss yellow white

with a pink nose and pink little paws like his father Their mother stretched her long orange torso in among the rags and licked her two new kittens clean. She gently nudged their faces towards her nipples to take her milk. They both fed voraciously. She mewed and rattled a gentle sound that was just for the comfort of her two small babies. Her paws flexed out and revealed ten sharp talons. She pared with great awe and pride at the two balls of fluff that she had just given Barton's.

Hidden among the nettles and dandel lines in the styrofoam and polyester rags, a family. The kittens let out their tiny meows into the night against the whoosh of nearby cars. On the first morning after their birth, a collection of crows were gathering near the wasteland, peppering the horizon. They followed the rubbish trucks that serviced the hardware store. her raggedy black crow heard the muse of the two kittens and soon alerted the rest, hungry for the sweet new organs and innards of day-old babies. Two flew down to where the kittens lay blind and helpless with their mother. The crows worked in pairs. One would have close

to her, cawing, teasing, outstretching his black wings, drawing her out and distracting her out and distracting her, while his accomplice stalked her two kittens behind her back. She fought off with a guttural ferocity. She swiped, hissed and spat, directing attention at one crow and then flipping back to attack the other. A frenzy overtook her. She arched her spine and her tail was electric with spiky fur. She found a roar in her belly that rumbled like a petrol lawnmower. The rest of the crows watched from a top of grey steel fence. Some perched on the security cameras that were fixed to the green corrugate of the hardware store. All kind, cheering,

fanatic, hoping for a fresh meal. This was sport. The two crows gave up and the entire flock disappeared with slapping noises. Flying off in search of the rubbish bins, the mother cat was too ferocious for them, too protective of her beloved new kittens. Her heart beat fast

and her energy was low from labour and producing milk. She returned to the nest to find that the little male had a scarlet. scarlet stain on his white face. He was screeching out with his tiny toothless pink mouth open. One of the crows had tried to peck his eye while her back was turned. His eyes which had not even opened to the world. The mother licked his face in a panic. She cleaned away the blood with her tongue. She did this every single day to keep the wound clean. The kitten and his sister fedded her teeth. Their mother licked his eye at every opportunity.

caring for the bloodied area, helping it to heal. She had saved him from death, but after a week, as they opened, the injured eye scabbed and the eyeball was rejected by his skull. It hung brown and dry from his face, and so his mother licked it off and cleaned the socket. He had one blue eye. The other might have been green like his father's. She continued to care for her kittens.

I was watching them, vocalising, dedicating her every decision and movement to their survival. Now a few weeks old with a spring in their jump. The girl, fluffy and black, with two green eyes. The boy, with one eye, was an ochre white, playful and mewing. They nipped at their mother's heels. They followed her through the tarmac and the briars, over the broken glass, under the abandoned car at the far end. They pounced on rusted coke cans and dived at dandelion clocks, sending the fluff of the flower floating over the wasteland. Having only one eye, the male kitten would always miss his target when he tried to pounce on a wasp or a butterfly.

The female kitten would nip at her mother's dangling teeth while she walked, and the mother would swipe and pin the kitten to the tarmac with a firm but gentle bite on her little throat to let the kitten and her brother know that they were getting too old for her milk now. The family cut a trail through nettles and would use it to travel to the perimeter of the wasteland to feed beside the iron fence. It was very common for hungry cats to die from eating poisoned rats. They were slow and easy to catch,

so people would visit in the evenings to push paper bags through the fence and scatter dry cat food in huge piles on the ground. Hordes of feral cats depended on this. These feedings drew out all of the stray cats in the nearby area. Different colonies and groupings of cats with their own hierarchies. The sun through the railings cast lanky blue shadows and it cut across them all. Solitary cats who didn't belong to a group always ate the food last.

To break this rule meant ferocious fighting. She and her two kittens were solitary. She had never settled with a colony, so the family would rummage her on the tarmac for itinerant brown nuggets with the other lone cats. This took a lot longer than feeding directly from the piles. But their mother didn't feel as nervous around humans as the other cats in the wasteland. She had the way of a cat that might have been close to a human at one point in her kittenhood. She was abandoned maybe, let out of a car.

It was too long ago. Occasionally, during the feedings, she would rub against the perimeter fence to the delight of the humans. She would meow like a kitten would, using an interspecies body language that she must have learned somewhere. It wasn't natural, a way of behaving that the other feral cats didn't possess. Those cats always kept a cautious distance from the humans on the other side of the fence, even when they held out food in their palms.

A strict separation that wild animals understood as instinct. But when the orange tabby mother would rub against the fence and mule like a kitten, a human would lay down food for her and her kittens only. She would allow a hand to stroke her back through the metal. Her kittens learned to emulate this by watching their mother. This is when they got the best feeds and it stood to them. It gave them a slight advantage during the evening feedings by the perimeter. fence. There wasn't much to be hunted in the wasteland. It was overgrown tarmac and concrete.

Bushels of grass broke through in little islands. A few hawthorn shrubs sprang up here and there. It was mostly nettle, dandelion, thistle and dockleaf. Anything but a shadow or root that could survive on moss or muck over stone. Spider webs would glisten between the grass at sunset, headjogs or hairs never got that far with all the cars. The lack of soil kept insect life to a minimum. The council sprayed weed killer through the fence once a year, so everything was bleached yellow around the edges. Nothing had a chance.

A mouse or a shrew hadn't much business in there. No where to borrow, no invertebrates to eat. The retail part beside the wasteland was no place for rats either. The hardware store kept rent-o-kill on hire 24-7, laying out pison and traps. A rat hadn't been seen there in years. A fox might pass through the fence, sniff the air and leave. Other than that, just the odd pigeon or crow. Staying safe high on the fences.

Electrical wires and corrugated roofs overhead. But there were plenty of cats in the wasteland. Hundreds of cats a day. mostly belonging to the colonies, skulking across, marking territory, Tom's fighting, the ammonia spice of their piss, hovering low, basking if there was a bit of sun, but no hunting to speak of. This was dead ground in the wasteland. The small kittens still pounced on anything that moved. Living or dead, an ant, a crisp packet bothered by a breeze. Their mother's eyes were sharpening to this. Even with the belly from the feedings by the perimeter fence. The hairs on her ears would pick up at the sound of a smaller animal. It was this instinct that brought her to the hawthorn bush. The one that grew out from disturbed tarmac beside the abandoned car. The rust fetid iron in the sile, so its bark was blood red. It was larger than the others about seven foot tall, with dense spiny branches and thick

olive leaves. The melody of a blackbird had been filling the wasteland in the mornings. It was a male who sang, slick black feathers in a chest that gloated when he whistled. And there was a quieter female who had built a small nest at the top of the hawthorn bush, nuzzling and proud, continental quilting her chicks. With a bright citrus beak and eyes like drops of ink. He sang every morning and evening to announce his territory, to protect his mate and their babies in their nest. He sang about taking care of his family. The mother cat and her kittens had been sniffing and searching around the hawthorn. She could hear the blackbird above her,

but the hawthorn was too treacherous to climb, with sharp spines on the branches. A native bird in a native tree. This was a natural defensive structure for a blackbird's nest. She attempted it, but decided not to climb any farther in case she became injured or trapped. For three days, she stalked the hawthorn bush.

Whenever she heard the chirpy song, laying low with her belly stuck to the tarmac wiggling her back side her kittens did the same watching their mother hunt when the blackbird would sing her eyes would fix upwards with a mania in them pupils blossoming into black circles

and her mouth became possessed her gums would rattle and clack making a rapid eck-eck noise as if she was impersonating the bird to call it down on the fourth day demented from his song.

She heard a tiny chirp under the hawthorn among the thickets of coarse grass and nettles adjacent the rusted car. It was a baby blackbird who had fallen from the nest flicking its neck and jittering the green blades of grass. Its large grey head and strange skin-covered eyes jerking like a leather puppet screaming for its mammy with a yellow mouth.

The cat dived on the tiny bird and held it between her lips. It wriggled excitedly under her chin. She walked high on the pads of her paws with her head up as she delivered the hatchling to her kittens. The black kitten pounced on the bird first, leaping playfully, pounding and mashing her paws on the little body, gumming her teeth around its face,

standing on her hind legs with her tail stabilising her torso. Cheap, cheap, cheap, coming down, swiping with her bow. paw and the bird's featherless wings stuck in her small claws, her claws like needles. She tried shaking the bird off her paw as if her paw was wet, driven by a curiosity about killing, but not understanding how to do it. The two blackbirds watched silently from atop the hawthorn while the kittens used their baby for practice, a cruel, slow and drawn-out procedure. The animal didn't die from any one wound or piercing. Died from the shock of it all. The cats didn't eat the bird. The orange tabby then directed her attention to her male kitten

who had yet to tie with the bird. His white shoulders were turned towards his mother and sister. The mother mewed to get his attention. He didn't move. His pink ears didn't cock. So she slowly walked over to him. He was staring off. in a different direction. His one blue eye focused on a bumblebee around a thistle. He was becoming death.

The same as his father, an affliction common to cats with white coats. Once his mother nudged him, he turned his head and saw his sister with the dead hatchling. His pupils dilated. He lay low,

wiggled his bum, and floated up into the air to pin the barren. He crashed down on his sister instead and tumbled against an old glass lucosate bottle. It rattled and the blackbird screeched. When he tried to play with the dead bird, it was awkward. He didn't possess depth perception and his swipes missed. The corpse kept tormenting him while his mother and sister stood back and watched.

Shadows lengthened and the air got colder. One by one, flies began to buzz around the little bird's wounds and crows perched the electrical lines overhead. The blackbird sang a new song. The mother moved her two kittens on. The white one followed behind his sister. Two months passed and the kittens were meowing less. They had less need to call for their mother to transport them in her mouth by their necks. They were maturing. Teenagers, a wild adult cat does not meow. Wild adult cats are silent. Mowing is dangerous. The wasteland wouldn't allow them to adapt to the state of perpetual kittenhood

that an adult domestic cat enjoys when it mimics the cries of a human baby. The mother and her kittens continued their regular routine of visiting the wasteland perimeter fence to feed in the red evenings. The colonies of other cats would arrive too. The hush of kibble flowing from a paper sack. Mews and cacks. fast paws, shuffling dirt, silence, the wet of mouths crunching on cat food, occasional scuffles and roars, the laughs and chatting of the people who brought the food. The kittens were older, larger, with proper-sized heads, looking a bit like all the other cats, but delicately thin and still manoeuvring their limbs with the rubbery chaos of baby cats. Their mother's trick of

charming her fur against the fence wasn't as effective now. The humans were much more receptive to her when she had two small kittens. Now they ignored her meows, and they didn't like the scrawny white cat with one eye. He looked like he had something contagious, they all agreed. They were repelled by the fear of growing fond of something that might die soon. So the Orange Tabby and her family would wait for the colony cats to finish and feed him what was left with the other loners. Back around the styrofoam nest, they would fight with each other more frequently. Daughter and mother would arch their backs, drool, lick their lips, hiss, lash out claws, clinging together in a violent ball and sent fur in the air,

thudding against the corrugated metal wall of the hardware store, all three of them were hungry all of the time, because there was less food to go around. The brother and sister had developed larger appetite. They would search around the Hawthorne Three, but the blackbirds had gone. The white cat was visibly thinner than his sister. His eyesight made him far less adept at spotting a nugget of kibble in the tarmac. They didn't venture beyond the wasteland. The strong sense of different colonies laid out a confusing and dangerous map.

Too much data to navigate. Too many rivalries in too small an area. It was safest to stick to their area. stay within the perimeter fence It was the heat of summer With no rain having fallen in two weeks This made the asphalt bubble And the whole place stank of tar

One day two boys of about 10 or 12 passed through the wasteland They had climbed over the perimeter fence They searched around the tarmac for glass bottles Which they then smashed against the abandoned car near the hard-thorn tree. The noise alerted the mother, who pricked her ears up and sculpted

by a patch of grass to watch the boys from a safe distance. Her two shadows followed behind, sniffing the air. Their bellies met their spines. They were thirsty. They ate butterflies when they caught them. The mother paused her step

and threw a firm look behind her shoulder. Her kittens stayed back and hid in the grass. She decided to get closer to the two boys Pss, pss, p's, said the taller of the two boys. She rubbed against his leg, paring, moving around in circles with her tail up high and shaking the tip like a snake,

nudging her wet muzzle into his empty palm for food. The boy stroked her neck gently. She raised her chin and he ran his hand down her back. She pared more for him and then salivated. She was initially reluctant, but something about a human stroke felt familiar and safe to her. It had worked before. He then grabbed her by the scruff and held her out with his arms stretched, pointing her at the other by. This is how they carry their kittens, men, like this, watch.

When you grab them like this behind the neck, they got paralysed. It's a trick that their mothers have to move the kittens around, he said. He held her up towards the high midday sun. Her body was stiff, eyes in a squint and her face was taut with his fist gripping firmly at the marmalade far on the back of her head. You could hear her breathing loud from her nose as her torso dangled and cast a small round shadow over the rust. The boy then swung her body down on the bonnet of the abandoned car. This led out a dead thud. She bounced to the ground, frozen by the days in her brain.

Before she could feel the adrenaline to escape, the other boy ran. raised a large rock over his head, and with both hands brought it down on her back, just above her orange tail, breaking her hind leg and shattering ribs. There was no screech because it winded her. She lay beside the car, unable to move, making a strange licking movement with her tongue between low howls. The asphalt wobbled metallic under the hot sun. The usual city hum was quietened by the daytime heat. The boys paced around the wasteland, nervous and excited, spitting, kicking things, not letting the other see any fear or shock at what they'd just done. The taller boy then left the wasteland by squeezing through the fence

near the back of the hardware store. The other sat on the bonnet of the abandoned car and took out a cigarette. He tried puffing smoke into rings. He wasn't very good at it, so he made a fish moat shape with his lips and tapped the side of his cheek. Smoke chugged out in intervals, and expanded into white circles against the squinty sky. While focusing up through a ring, he fixed his eyes on the overhead electrical wires. He returned to the mother cat, who had managed to hide some of her body under the car.

She was wheezing, with foamy sputum dripping from her nose to the tarmac. Black ants drank from its edges. She produced a husky howl that rattled, a bubbling sound in her lungs when she inhaled. The howl was for her kittens. Her cry reverberated up through the metal of the car which made it louder and more hollow sounding. The boy paused to listen to this with curiosity.

He then pulled her out from under the car by her back legs and remembering something he'd seen an older boy do with a cat before, he swung her body up towards the power lines, hoping that he would see sparks or an explosion. But he wasn't strong enough. Each time he failed and missed the power line by a few feet, her body would spin down horizontally like a heavy sycamore seed and land with a thud on the tarmac below. He tried this four times, then gave up.

The taller of the two boys returned. He had been in the hardware store and had stolen a bottle of fluid with a red cap. They emptied the bottle onto the mother cat who was still alive and then set her on fire. She died screaming. The boys tried to kick her body under the heart horn to set it on fire, but it didn't work. Too much sap in the bark to catch a blaze. The black kitten could hear the howls. Even though she was maturing, she still possessed the instincts of a baby.

She felt danger and remained perfectly still in the grass, undetectable, waiting for her mother to collect her. Silent. Her brother could not hear anything and had wandered off in the opposite direction on the trail of a cooling breeze. The sky had darkened with the promise of rain turning the air navy blue. Summer clouds that make green things seem greener.

There's its kitten, said the taller of the boys, seeing the little white dot on the other side of the wasteland. The male kitten was in an open area of tarmac and his bright fur made him stand out from the green in the grey. He was curled up and resting. The tall boy moved towards him. The shorter boy, in a pang of guilt, threw a stone at the kitten to frighten it away. It landed, but he didn't hear it. As the tall boy got closer and could make out the size and shape of the cat, he rose up on his toes and crept, careful not to disturb the broken glass under his feet. But there was too much

glass in the wasteland, and it crunched and cracked. The noise made the sister very uneasy. The instincts of an adult cat surfaced up in her, the hunger to escape in a flurry. She burst out from the grass she'd hid in and ran past the boy, darting away like a tadpole in a sudden shadow, a dark blurrer. She swept past her brother's nose, and he felt the wind of her tail. He followed her because following her was all he had known. They both scarpered under the perimeter fence, beyond the wasteland and past the hardware store. Across the motorway, two black and white smudges, through wooden fences, under the barks of dogs, him following her every gallop, and fat drops of cooling rain pounded the earth and asphalt and drummed on the

corrugated roofs of the retail park, serious puddles, tarmac shunned like leather, weeds stiffened, gutters slushed and gargled with violent brown water and everything everywhere smelled like hidden isle the rain stopped and steam wisped up from the footpaths they settled on a mowed lawn where the air carried the freshness of trees but still had the hum of cars and people they kept silent and rigid with the confusion separated from their mother for the first time the sun cracked out a cloud and lay a warming marmalade beam across their faces, then went away. Under a sycamore, the white cat curled his tail around his paws and lifted up his neck, his one blue eye in a squint and his nostrils inflating and contracting. He bobbed his head and studied the air. His sister purred and rubbed against him from behind. He flinched.

They pressed their foreheads together and rubbed noses. There was nothing familiar on the gust The torrents of rain had washed away Any smell of the wasteland No marking or trail from a tom survived Their maps were wiped Nothing could lead them back They lived among the houses now

It came into autumn The suburbs were quiet Semi-detached houses With terracotta roofs over ample back gardens winding roads and grassy parks with trees, alleys for creeping behind the houses, gentle breezes that told stories about cats, dogs, bins, foxes, bats. The comforting perfume of flower beds over freshly cut lawns.

Dark pools of ponds with fat golden carp swimming in a hypnotic circle that kept their necks manic. The song of the swallow and robin, There was a new map of smells to crack. The markings of house cats were less definite than in the wasteland. These orders didn't speak about murder. They would follow their noses along the trails and find the feeding dishes of these domestic cats. There was no shortage of cat food in the suburbs either.

Spilling out of ceramic balls at back porches, inside cat houses, wet food, cans of oily mackerel. she would even steal food from the bowls of dogs and she would always go first hopping up on a back wall and surveying the garden making sure it was clear they had their favourite spots he would follow her

it always took him longer everything took him longer to jump up on a wall he had to stare up and study the ledge wiggling his white arse focusing the pupil of his eye dilating it trying his absolute best to

correctly gauged the distance before springing forth with the muscles of his back legs. A fierce long leap. It didn't always work, and he'd miss the tops of walls, bouncing his chest off the edge and winding himself. Or he'd tear his claws into breeze-block concrete, dangling, dragging himself up. He would howl while doing this. He hadn't much self-awareness when it came to noise due to his deafness. The cats were maturing into adulthood now.

ready for the next spring she had become strong and healthy her thick black beautiful fur bunched around her neck and the tabby pattern of her mother came through her belly in orange bands under sunlight her oval eyes

were bright lime green her caught slick and teeth healthy from the endless supply of fish and whiskas that she stole from the balls of house cats who didn't really care no end to the licking and grooming and she was I was completely silent, clean with no smell, always skulking low, avoiding humans and moving

invisibly against the night time, soft pads under the paws, not a chirp out of her. But her poor old brother's coat was unkempt and raggedy, yellowed white like a sheep, limp pink ears that didn't cock, the continual stress and confusion of being deaf and one-eyed had written itself into the expression on his face. His mouth was frightened and full of caution. His single, beautiful, azure eye consistently widened in alertness. His chin stained brown. He was clumsy. He followed his sister for food, but ate last and often alerted a human or a dog who would chase him away before he finished. He developed two awkward white testicles that dangled between his back legs and jutted out so you'd see them from the side. He began to mark the walls and gardens

of the suburbs with the shake of his tail and backside, a noxious blinding ammonia tang, which then attached to his fur. His forever state of stress had him grooming less and less. You could smell him before you saw him. He yawned and mawed in the alleyways between the houses and the dead of night, dying for a mate. Fearal tomcats would wander into the suburb by the strength of his markings and the smell of his sister in heat. They would search for him and attack. He would try to fight back but was outmatched by the stronger, faster males. His ferocious sister would fight his corner instead, swiping, hissing, arching her spine and latching in a ball, and any cat who came for her brother. Then he would try to mate with his sister. It was this antisocial behaviour

that had them trapped by the rescue people. There was a chimney-smoke moon above an alley in the winter when they bought caught wind of cooked chicken that was wafting in the air. The chicken was bait, and they found themselves locked in a plastic cage together. Torches blinding their faces, gloved fingers pressing around their gums. He howled, and she kept as quiet as she could, while thumping in the box to escape, tearing the heads off each other, trapped with blankets and pinned to a stainless steel vet's table

the terrifying milky stink of humans all over their bodies because they were feral no attempt was made to find them a home they had gone beyond the point of domestication they were both neutered and released back into the suburb when they spayed her the vet removed the fetuses of three kittens they were a year and a half old now they both had little fat pockets that dangled under their bellies. They spent more time lounging and stretching.

You'd think they were domestic by the shape of them. The white cat had become incredibly docile. He didn't mark anymore. He didn't howl and was happy to trail behind his sister. There was no more fighting other than the occasional swipe and hiss between siblings. They had found a home in one of the houses in the suburb that was unoccupied by people. a garden in the rear that was overgrown and full of nettles

like the wasteland it was protected by high walls no person or animal ever ventured in and they slept in an old tool shed that was falling apart it was shelter nonetheless it kept them dry from rain

and away from winds everything felt safe the air had no warnings in it and they had no reason to leave the garden on one of those mornings where the grass was crystal white and crunched with frost she was jarred from sleep by the sound of movement in the garden her brother did not hear she poked an inquisitive black face out through a wooden slat in the busted shed ice powdered on her brow and she flicked her two ears a young woman was slowly inspecting every corner and crevice of the garden the woman's arms were folded high on her chest and her breath was cornflower blue against the dead winter. The black cat nudged her brother and they both quietly exited the back of the shed. The two cats observed the woman from the safety of the breeze block wall while she gently moved all flower pots over with

her wellies and tugged at the loose slats of the shed. She hummed a Mariah Carey song. She had long brown hair and a softness to her voice. She arched her neck up. and spotted the black cat and white cat who were surveying her. She gasped like a child, paused a bit and blinked her eyes slowly in a secret cat human language. Pts, she said to them with her hand out, rubbing her fingers together. The cats kept a cautious distance and watched with no discernible emotion from atop the wall. The sister sat tall and proud with the tail wrapped around her two feet, and the tip wagging slowly

and himself behind her looking on with one eye and his sad mouth peering down on the woman nonchalantly as if they were to be worshipped the woman walked off with brisk excitement and soon came back

trying to woo them both with a slice of ham in her palm lifting it up above her head towards the top of the wall they could smell the delicious meat but still refused to let her get close consistently backing away as soon as she got near to them. She gave up.

Later that evening the woman returned and placed an entire can of tuna by the back door. Pss, pss, p's. She said towards the tool shed. The two cats waited with caution until she had gone back inside. Herself silent, himself smelling the air and mawing,

and then they had a fine feed, a frenzy of licking and smacking afterwards. the pink of his mouth on display and the little hairy tongue searching every millimeter of his muzzle for a bit of missed tuna the black cat held up her paw and using her head

rubbed vigorously all around her ears and scalp giving herself the perfume of fish isle as if to let any other cat know how well she was doing for herself the woman watched all of this from the kitchen window with a proud smile on her face thrilled that she had brought happiness to the two far babies out in her new back garden. They'll keep coming back if you do that, the man said.

This is their house, she said. They live in that shed out there. We've moved into their house. It's us who are their guests. He wrapped his arms around her waist and they both stared at the animals, awe-struck and free from worry, hypnotised by their behaviour. That poor little white one. with the eye is cute, he said.

The tuna turned into whiskies and bowls of milk. The food became regular, once in the morning and once in the evening, a predictable routine, just like the wasteland of their youth. But there was no competition now. This was all for them. They were safe. They were warm. They were fed.

Their days were spent, rolling around in the grass, and letting the sun hit their bellies. their biggest concern was finding the most comfortable position to rest in. The shed had been knocked down and a small wooden cat house was built for them with a soft foam bed inside. They slept together for warmth. She licked her brother's far and kept his neck clean. They pared and kissed with noses, growing older together. His eyesight and his deafness were less of an issue in the garden.

He'd occasionally pounce on a bee and crue. crash into a flower pot, leading to howls of laughter from the kitchen. The couple grew fond of the cats, watching their antics from the window, slow blinking and getting slow blinks back. But the cats in their wildness would still flinch and move away if the couple tried to pet them. Two years passed, and the suburbs were changing. The order residents were gradually being replaced by younger people. Ponds were filled in.

gardens were raised and carpeted with sterile bales of plastic grass. Decking was built. In the garden, the grass stood tall and the shrubs gave shelter. The couple were cautious not to interfere with the little habitat that the cats had discovered. We'd be like colonizers, she'd say. But no matter how much food they provided or how many slow links they could deliver, they couldn't establish a bond with the animals. For the cats it was a relationship of tolerance and for the couple it was one of longing. I wish they'd let me pet them, she'd say to him. Look at her beautiful court. If only they didn't have to sleep outside either. They could sleep on the couch in here if they weren't so frightened all the time. I'd love that too. It can get freezing out there, he said back, but they're terrified

of us. One evening, the woman's squeezed gelatinized cat food from a metal packet into a bowl. She had been busy that morning and missed a feed. She used both hands to make sure all the jelly made it to the dish. The aroma of chicken and beef wafted through the air. As her fingers pressed on the file, she noticed the photograph of the cheerful domestic cat on the design. The black cat was particularly hungry and began to feed immediately without keeping her usual distance. The woman spotted an opportunity and reached her hand forward. She gently rubbed her finger on the black cat's forehead between her eyes.

The cat hissed immediately. She didn't understand this physicality. She had no frame of reference for this touch. It was an attack. She jumped and waited for the woman to go back inside. Her brother stood behind her. But as her brother grew stronger with the regular food and the stress of his life eased, he developed an independence.

He followed his sister less and found a personality for himself. His face softened. He lost the look of fear and the sad mouth. When the man sat out to enjoy the garden with his coffee, the white cat would slowly walk closer and lie down beside him. The man began to carefully, unfurringed. unfurl his arm and rubbed the cat's soft white paws, eventually moving his fingers towards the plush fur of his neck. The white cat part for him and closed his one eye, stretching his chest

out and relishing the scratches and affection. The woman would do the same, stroking her hand down his fluffy white belly that he pointed at the sky. The black cat would stand back at a safe distance at all times, watching, confused, forever on alert, always silent. Her brother began to meow when he saw the couple in the mornings, rubbing off their legs, pouncing up with enthusiasm, purring like an engine and demanding his breakfast to the delight of the couple, behaving like his mother in the wasteland when she begged for food from the people at the fence. Soon the male cat would walk in the back door through the kitchen and explore all over the house whenever he pleased. Upstairs into empty beds, lying on windowsills, paring and meowing. He would sleep between the

couple and the couch on chilly nights. The TV turned up full blast, making no difference to him, curled up in a white ball, stretching the talons, yawning and getting little treats and rubs, snoring in his sleep, dreaming cat dreams that made his muzzle cack. and his paws flick while the couple marvelled over him. His one eye and his snowy face, glowing different colours from the light of the TV screen, delighted with himself. His sister stayed outside in the cold,

watching it all in the window. They had given up and coaxing her into the warmth that her brother enjoyed. Both cats were well looked after in the garden, but the white cat became the favourite. The couple took pity on him. They called him Sullivan, because of the one eye. She didn't get a name. He was receptive to affection and rubs. He gave love back. He ate first now. In a separate dish that was in the kitchen near the bins, she ate outside.

Still, he was never fully domesticated. The wildness was there, spending some nights in the wooden cat house with his sister and others inside on the warmth of the couch. He had found a compromise that met his needs, taught by his mother who knew the touch of people. His sister stayed fearful and cautious. After years of comfort, the brother and sister found themselves in old age. Her muscle tone softened among the black fur, and her spine, which was once a proud arch, slumped down and ended in a bent tail. Silver hairs grew up of her eyes and grooming became more difficult. He was slow and round with problems in his bones. His walk was a style of hobble that he puffed out between sleeps and the single blue eye faded into a cloudy grey that might bring a cataract. But they were both adored

and fed and sheltered. It was a warm summer evening with long shadows when the couple brought the baby home. Butterflies and dandelion fluff floated through the blood-eyed sun, and the cats stuck their sweaty bellies to the sky to catch the last of it. The newborn was a soft pink lump of skin and cotton like a wobbling rose, nestled in a pram in the kitchen. The couple stared into the cot, with mad smiles on their faces, intoxicated with disbelief at the confusing wonder of life. external sensation could distract them. They lifted the baby up and took turns rocking it,

laughing. They squealed and mewed at their baby and the baby squealed back. The cats would stare in the kitchen window at it all, ignored. The white cat would meow and purr. The couple didn't come to his calls anymore. A day or two might pass and their dishes went empty. No more slow blinks every morning or bits of ham. The woman would rush to the bins in the the back garden with bags and nappies and step over the two cats. They'd scarper out of the way. The grass was replaced with plastic grass for when the baby could crawl, the uniform green spikes jutted into their skin and didn't cool them during that hot summer. They slept less. They began to bicker and hiss at each other again. Conditions worsened over the months.

The baby cried out at night time and the noise kept the black cat on edge. All routine had changed in the garden. Hungry and an eyed, the white cat strolled into the kitchen. He'd had no breakfast that morning. His tail in the air, cocky, the blue eyes squinting and the pink mouth open, meowing loudly, calling for his humans. He carefully climbed up onto the kitchen counter by putting himself up on a stool, expending much more energy than he was used to. He licked crumbs of cheese from the surface. The baby was sleeping in the pram adjacent to the counter, wrapped up and warm.

The baby lay level to him, and he spotted her hands reaching up from her blankets. His meows had stirred her. The cat sniffed the air and was inspired by a curiosity for this little creature and its new smell. He arched himself at the edge of the counter to inspect closer. Four cotton ball paws stuck together, poised on the, edge, stabilising his tail and wiggling his bum, squinting his eye at the pram, his pupil like a full moon, cock in his chin, slow, considered, trying to gate the distance. He leapt forward with his fat white torso stretched out, suspended for a moment in mid-air, before missing the pram

spectacularly. To save his fall, one of his paws latched onto the side of the pram, talons out, The other found its way onto the baby's soft peach arm, leaving a long scratch. Young scarlet blood bubbled from each claw track on her skin. The wounds puffed. The baby screamed in pain. The white cat dangled, his spiky tail thrashing pointlessly like an extra limb. The weight of his body pulled the pram to the ground and the helpless infant rolled onto her front. She couldn't lift her head up. her nose pressed against the tile floor crying gasping wailing with tiny pearls of red dripping from her skin her arms wiped out with each scream and stained the tiles in an arc

a little blood angel with one wing her pink knitted blanket falling off her her impossibly small body exposed the white cat sniffed her cuts and licked the blood the couple burst into the kitchen the man shouted he's fucking attacked her, Jesus Christ. The white cat could not hear this. The man kicked the cat as hard as he could in the stomach, sending him flying across the kitchen. He escaped out the back door to the safety of the garden, mawing, falling over his feet, not understanding what had just happened. The couple hugged and held their howling baby between them, rocking together like trees in a breeze. The woman and the man both cried in terror and relief. her that evening there was a cat carrier in the back garden where the black cat's food dish usually lay. Inside were two bowls of fresh tuna and milk, a rare feast. Even though she was hungry,

the black cat kept her distance, refusing to enter the carrier. Her brother saw no issue and hobbled into the box. He devoured the tuna for them both. When he turned to leave, the grate of the carrier had closed. She remained beside the carrier all night. While her brother mawed inside, his one eye squinting, he did a pee and his feet slipped in the wet plastic as he tried to escape. She paced, she rubbed against the carrier, trying to kiss noses through the wire. In the morning the man appeared. He hissed at her loudly and kicked the ground, sending a flower pot in her direction, crashed violently. She clambered up the back wall and sat there in silence at a safe distance.

as the man walked off into the kitchen with the handle of the carrier in his fist. This was the last time she saw her brother. She returned to the garden after a few hours and pressed her nose in the empty space near the kitchen door. Her cat house and her bed were no longer there, sitting in the wet, dark rectangle where she and her brother had slept for many years. Hundreds of woodlice crawled around her paws. food dish was gone. She sniffed at nothing and remained silent and still, sleeping with

her black tail around her nose, on the concrete by the door. The cold penetrating up through her withered limbs, the wind ruffling her neck and waken her up. Occasionally, the woman would open the window and hiss at her while holding her baby. The man threw a mug of water at the black cat while she slept in a ball by the door. This was very frightening and unexpected. After some weeks she left the garden, hungry, delirious and unsure. She would raise her head and study the air in search of trails, but her senses had dulled in later years. The smells confused her. She travelled from house to house, but there were fewer cats in the suburbs with food dishes to steal from. She no longer had the stamina to scale walls and avoid dogs.

Through the alleyways, she walked along on sore pads, slower now, pausing every so often. The muscles of her shoulders had memorized the movement of looking back to check on her brother. This was the first time in her life that she had been alone. The black cat found herself in an electrical substation beside an industrial estate. It was a maze of large grey metal boxes, with pathetic green sproutings of life, occasionally breaking through mulch, huge steel pylons towered above. This wasn't new to her. There were fewer smells than in the wasteland where she was born, but the dandelions and broken glass felt familiar and safe. She stuck to walls and fences and picked up the trail of an animal, through nettles a scent of yours. Rhine revealed itself. She clung to it like a ball of string, brushing against the grey metal

box of an electrical substation. The cat stopped. It was a rat, huddled in a ball like it was trying to stay warm. A light drizzle made everything electric hum and fizzle. She lay low and approached the rat from the side. The ground was a grey pebble mulch that had been laid to keep weeds from growing. No matter how much she softened her pads, the stones clacked loudly against the electrical buzzing. Slow movements. Her focus sharpened around the rodent so that nothing else existed in that moment. With each crunch under her paw, she stopped, her body frozen, expecting the rat to hear her and dart off. But the rat was in a daze, huddled and dumb. It didn't sniff the air or rub its face or hear her pounce. She dispatched the animal quickly with her teeth and devoured its guts,

satiated. She took shelter in a thicket of shrubs that jutted out from the substation wall. Strong smells of foreign tombs wafted in. She curled up with her nose over her paws. The marmalade glow of a streetlight slithered through the leaves and speckled her black fur. convulsions and pains dragged her from her sleep her torso curled and unfolded with the tension of a stubborn spring she struggled to breathe a red foam dripped from her nose and stained the pebbles and her paws she huddled in a ball like the rat she had eaten when she felt the final painful breaths of death she began to meow like a tiny kitten the o-shaped cries of a newborn filtered through adult lungs she cried for her mammy to come and collect her and all of them mother brother and sister

melt into sludge and rise again in the pistols of the dandelions Thank you. You know, Thank you.