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Diary of a shop owner (Anthony Dobbs)

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I am just another local Wexford shop owner with the same bills and complaints as everyone else, rent’s too high, rates are pointless, insurance is too high, the list could go on but that is not what my story is about. It’s about watching a dream come through, seeing a multitude of nightmares unfold and finding my forever person. October 2014  I stepped away from the comfort of a full time job, well with a little redundancy push anyway.  I walked up and down the town looking for a small shop and I found one I liked, it was small and pokey and I went to speak to the estate agent about it, by the time I got there it was gone.  I was disappointed and at that time I was being offered the chance to apply for other positions within my current employment.  I did apply for a role and got passed over. When I asked why, I was given no answer.  So at that stage I was facing a mortgage without an income. October 15th 2014  By complete accident I happened across my shop!  I had walked past it many t
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The Ladder (Eamonn Colfer)

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Danny Mantles was seventeen when he moved with his father and younger sister to Raven Falls – one of the remotest places in the country. His father had found work there as a chef in the canteen at the lead mine. It was the latest of a series of moves. Danny’s mother had left them three years previously. They were still struggling to recover.   Danny’s father had always been strict and became even more so after the move, mindful that Danny had just finished school and would inevitably be entertaining notions of freedom, which his father assured him he wasn’t ready for, telling him that if he was to leave home he’d always feel like his work with him had been unfinished – his son in the world, his head still full of childishness. Danny was expected to work as a dishwasher five days a week in the canteen. And while he had a house key, a strict curfew of ten o’ clock was imposed. Danny was nothing like his father. He had none of his father’s anger. He was more like his mother. Calm. Gentle.
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Soulless Hunter (Dean Bolger)

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Hey do you guys want to go insane inside insanity into trips of darkness, into the red hour dripping eternal blood. Do you want to understand beggar’s belief, do you want to listen to the sad songs and be awoken inside nightmares of chaos by whispering trees that dress the dawn to capture the light to live the dream. The scattered remains of death poetry lifting long dark  veils inside realms of falling nightfall silencing optimism leaving blankets of darkness across shoulders of saints. For the sake of sanity let the poets out of their cages and let the people cry. People are dumb and I am dumb. People fill streets and empty hearts, people cast shadows in dark halls, I’ve heard their silly notions, now do you want to hear about faith? Faith isn’t going to save you, Faith is a broken shoelace fed through tubes to warm our decaying existence, while martyrs on horseback fed by green envy trample upon swords. The isolated dreams of Shepard’s lie in sandy time with the waves of delight spe
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The New Long War (Dan Finn)

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They haven't gone away, you know.    McKevitt pulled into the driveway as evening began to fall.  Over the fields of Cross, the drone of tractors, children playing, birds in the trees.   Maginn heard the sound of the engine and came down the stairs. The crescent window above the door. The light through the hallway summery, the colour of beer. Smiling before he'd even reached the door. Opened it, drew it back, detail spilled in.    'Well, well,' Maginn said to the smirking McKevitt. 'Tar isteach, a chara.' Turning to acknowledge hay bales painted green, white and orange.    A smirk.    He followed him in.    McKevitt standing in the kitchen, Maginn watching the kettle boil.    'How's everythin up Coalisland way?'    'Ah....' McKevitt said, smiling. He rubbed the top of his head, whitish hair cropped tightly.   Maginn was pointing at turkey sandwiches on a plate under tinfoil, but McKevitt waved them away.    'So whataya upta these days?
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Pains of Glass (Álanna Hammel)

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Have you ever fallen in love with someone through pains of glass?  I have.  When I hear the word beauty I think of cosmetics.  Women with tweezed eyebrows and skinny necks staring into the back of a camera.  I wonder how the camera man feels.  Is he nervous?  Does it benefit his self-confidence?   They must lead him to believe something; they may be through the lens of a camera but they’re still stares.  As much as a stare as an estranged neighbour from across the dinner table.  As much as a stare as I would stare at him through pains of glass, were they not there to be looked through surely?  My estranged neighbour across the dinner table made me overly conscious of my every move.  Was it my hair?  Was it my makeup?  Did I have something between my teeth?  I was uncomfortable.  Staring was rude, I was always told that. Although the last thing in the world I wanted was for him to be uncomfortable.  His hair was perfect, makeup if any was flawless and there was nothing between his teeth
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