The Year the World Stood Still

The end of 2019 was a busy time for Fermanagh Writers. We had been involved as writers and performers in two dramatic presentations directed by Paddy McEneany: our own The Ghost of Christy Past for the Fermanagh Live festival, and The Gods of Sound and Stone in the Strule Arts Centre, and we were looking forward to a new project Better Together in conjunction with Ballinamore Hens Shed. I had been in hospital with a clot on the lung, and we all needed a rest before the next issue of Corncrake. There would certainly be plenty to write about.

Then Covid arrived.

(more…)

image_pdf

Kathy May

These words were written just after our friend Katharine – Kathy May – died. I wrote them down without thinking of grammar or meter or sequence or refinement.

They are from my first thoughts as my wife Ann McNulty and I were, and still are, trying to come to terms with our grief at the tragedy of Kathy our lifetime friend being dead. Perhaps I thought they were going to be the kernel of a poem or a piece of dandified prose. Not yet, I am not ready to disturb them.

(more…)

image_pdf

Valuable, not Vulnerable

The shadow of Coronavirus has suffocated the world. But as a physically disabled woman, the world has opened up for me.

With a squeeze of a button I see National Theatre productions on YouTube. Daily I have rediscovered Melissa Etheridge rocking from home. Jason Byrne is sweating workouts through Instagram; I have dusted off my dumbbells and he is inspiring my exercise. I have collaborated with Gary Lightbody, beaming from his LA rental. I run a book club through Zoom; isn’t it interesting to see other people’s décor? Normally I cannot access their homes.

(more…)

image_pdf

Valentines

Her pen poised over the card. Did people send these any more? What about Snapchat or Tick Tock whatever that was? She doubted he was on those.

She just wanted a connection. In lockdown she felt adrift, lost amid a sea of people in trapped in tiny houses, thrown this way and that on a never-ending tsunami. When the children left, they had been so busy, him commuting to the city, her with her all-consuming job. Having such a big house didn’t help. She thought of the early years struggle to pay the mortgage, for what? Lots of space now to keep apart in.

(more…)

image_pdf

Friendships

As some of you may or may not know, I have recently self-published my second book of a trilogy ‘The Blossom or The Bole’. Book 1 was a huge success in 2017, so with encouragement of the amazing reviews from my readers and my fellow writers I embarked on writing Book 2 in 2018.

I had often heard of writers block but had never experienced it until I quite literally lost the plot halfway through. I was on the brink of giving up altogether.

(more…)

image_pdf

The Lost Garden of Garraiblagh

For me, one of the few positives of the first lockdown was that it provided the time and space for creativity. The novel I had been working on for the past few years, including a high level of research, was now at the critical point of completion – the final draft with editing and completion of the illustrations. Now there was nowhere to go and no excuses left. It was time to finish the novel and self-publish.

The Lost Garden of Garraiblagh is the story of a garden, interwoven with the stories of the people connected to it. It is a love story, reaching from Victorian times in and around Belfast through to the present day in Northern Ireland.

(more…)

image_pdf