top of page
Heartbreaker
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2017
Whenever I think of Gerard I imagine him stepping off the bus at the Europa with a holdall and a guitar case even though he never owned a guitar the whole time I knew him and I wasn’t even sure he could play more than the two or three chords I ever heard him play. But when I think of him he is striding up Great Victoria Street in the rain— it’s always in the rain— towards Shaftesbury Square, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, on his way to Laverys for his very first pint in the big city. He is just shy of twenty years old and I will meet him for the very first time within the hour...
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2017
Whenever I think of Gerard I imagine him stepping off the bus at the Europa with a holdall and a guitar case even though he never owned a guitar the whole time I knew him and I wasn’t even sure he could play more than the two or three chords I ever heard him play. But when I think of him he is striding up Great Victoria Street in the rain— it’s always in the rain— towards Shaftesbury Square, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, on his way to Laverys for his very first pint in the big city. He is just shy of twenty years old and I will meet him for the very first time within the hour...
Heartbreaker
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2017
Whenever I think of Gerard I imagine him stepping off the bus at the Europa with a holdall and a guitar case even though he never owned a guitar the whole time I knew him and I wasn’t even sure he could play more than the two or three chords I ever heard him play. But when I think of him he is striding up Great Victoria Street in the rain— it’s always in the rain— towards Shaftesbury Square, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, on his way to Laverys for his very first pint in the big city. He is just shy of twenty years old and I will meet him for the very first time within the hour...
Heartbreaker
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2017
Whenever I think of Gerard I imagine him stepping off the bus at the Europa with a holdall and a guitar case even though he never owned a guitar the whole time I knew him and I wasn’t even sure he could play more than the two or three chords I ever heard him play. But when I think of him he is striding up Great Victoria Street in the rain— it’s always in the rain— towards Shaftesbury Square, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, on his way to Laverys for his very first pint in the big city. He is just shy of twenty years old and I will meet him for the very first time within the hour...
A Hill of Beans
The Honest Ulsterman
October 2018
The radio’s on low and Gabriel’s half-listening. Trump, Brexit, more deaths in Syria and beyond, Trump again. Gabriel sits up in bed in the dark as Finn sleeps beside him, dead to the world. He lights another cigarette and tries to concentrate, tries to take an interest in the world outside. He tries to distract himself from himself, and the mess he’s gotten into...
Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere
The Honest Ulsterman
October 2015
One.
The moon's glow bleeds through the curtains, cutting a slash of silver across the bed. Caroline lies staring into the darkness above, trying to fight the feeling of emptiness inside. She presses her weight down into the mattress to prevent her body from rising, lifting from the bed and floating up into the night.
Geordie lies sleeping beside her. She listens to his breathing, hangs on to his reality. Beneath the heavy winter quilt, his back is turned to her. She moves in close, fits her body to his. Her arm reaches over him and her hand touches his, joined as if in silent prayer.
“Don’t,” he says, loud and alert, as if he’s been awake all along.
“I only want to hold you,” she tells him.
He moves away, the sheets twisting under him. Caroline stays where she is, pressing her weight down into the mattress again. She closes her eyes and wishes away the distance between them. It’s been four weeks now...
Shadow and Light
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2015
You haven’t slept in four nights now, but it isn’t insomnia you’re suffering from. You have slept. Every day you sleep, from sunrise to sunset. You just can’t sleep at night. You try, though. God knows you do. After a sleep-filled day you get up, eat breakfast, watch some TV, then, around midnight, you return to bed. There you try breathing exercises, ones that you read in a book one time that are supposed to help if you can’t sleep. What you do is, you draw a breath slowly in, hold it in your lungs for a few seconds, then exhale slowly through your nose until all the air is gone, all the while concentrating your thoughts on the space between the tip of your nose and the top of your lip. Then you start over. You do this for what seems like hours. It doesn’t work. Not for you, anyway...
Sailing By
34th Parallel
Issue 5
Emma stands at the gates of the City Hall. She is naked. The streets around her are empty; the whole city seems deserted. Storm clouds threaten rain as a harsh wind whips acrossDonegall Square. Rubbish spills from litter bins and dances through the air. A page from a discarded newspaper wraps itself around her leg. She begins to shiver. There are goosebumps on her arms and legs, her nipples are hard as bullets. She calls out his name. she calls out his name but her voice is carried off by the wind to be lost in the hills above the town…
Learning to Float
late-night river lights
Short story anthology
Published by EDIT Red, 2008
ISBN: 978-0615180620
Anthony ‘Tonto’ Mullen stood at the edge of the high embankment and gazed down into the water below. The swing, which hung from the outstretched branches of the chestnut tree beside him, moved heavily in the wind; describing a lazy figure eight above the slow flowing river. The morning sun dappled the murky green water with dancing light and threw shards of silver onto a rusted pram, which lay half-submerged in the silt and slime of the riverbed. Tonto hawked up some phlegm from deep in his throat, rolled the soft oyster around his mouth, then spat towards the thick, brown rope of the swing, hoping to hit it. He missed and swore to himself…
The Ghost of Childhood Kisses
Small Voices, Big Confessions
Short story anthology
Published by Damned Ink, 2006
ISBN: 978-8799160105
The freshly fallen snow crumpled beneath their feet as they tramped along the glen path towards the Shore Road. William shivered within the confines of his overcoat. Drawing a packet of cigarettes from his pocket he was on the verge of offering one to the babysitter when he realised that she was probably too young to smoke. As he paused and fumbled in his trouser pockets for a light she stopped and turned to him. “Can I have one?” she asked…
A Scattering of Symmetry
The Stinging Fly
Issue 17
Winter 2003-2004
The sausages are screaming in the frying pan as I lift it off the heat. Their browned skin has split, revealing the meat beneath like a gaping wound. I rummage in the drawer for a fork. Spearing them one by one I put the sausages on a plate next to the toasted soda bread. I sit down at the kitchen table and begin to eat. It’s four in the morning...
A Scattering of Symmetry was runner-up in the Brian Moore Short Story Award in 2003. The judge was Carlo Gebler.
Never Ever
Breaking the Skin: Twenty-First Century Irish Writing Volume One – New Irish writing
Short story anthology
Published by Black Mountain Press, 2002
ISBN: 978-0953757015
I stood up. I was OK. I looked around the room and saw them. They were sleeping, Adam on the settee, James on a chair.
I felt my legs where they hurt. My tights were ripped and both my knees were skinned. My fingers came away bloody. The crotch of my tights hung torn between my legs where I hurt most. I was going to be OK.
The bastards! I couldn’t believe they had done this to me. The fuckin’ bastards! I couldn’t believe this had happened to me.
“I’m Adam,” he’d said. “Pleased to meet you.”
The Bed Bugs Bite
Breaking the Skin: Twenty-First Century Irish Writing Volume One – New Irish writing
Short story anthology
Published by Black Mountain Press, 2002
ISBN: 978-0953757015
They were in the woods somewhere, hunting him. He mustn’t get caught. If he was they’d push his face into the nettles again. That’s what the Japs used to do to their prisoners during the war. So Willy said anyways.
But he was a Commando and he wouldn’t let himself be caught, not this time. Commandos were brave, they were the good guys. He could never understand why Willy and Tonto always wanted to be the Japs.
Everybody knew that they’d got beat in the war. The Americans dropped a big bomb on them, and then they gave up. The Japs were evil too. Tonto’s Uncle Jamesy was in the war and got captured by them. They made him build this bridge out in the jungle somewhere – he’d seen a film about it – and didn’t give him anything to eat except spiders and insects and other creepy crawlies. He’d nearly died...
The Bed Bugs Bite was winner of The Brian Moore Short Story Award in 2002. The judge was Dermot Bolger.
bottom of page