Shorter than me

Author: Ruth Powell

  • Review of the International Dublin Writers’ Festival

    My friend, Katie Moynagh, was the one who told me all about the International Dublin Writers’ Festival, and so it was she who called me to the adventure.  Katie writes beautiful poems and short stories, and I enjoy listening to her read them aloud, and I trust her opinions on all things literary.  All the same, I declined at first, as I had other plans for that weekend, but as things moved around and I adjusted my diary, I found myself in attendance at the festival, at the Academy Hotel, just off O’Connell Street, in Dublin city.

    As soon as I arrived, I felt the fear.  What on earth was I doing attending a writers’ festival in Dublin?  I wasn’t established, successful, well read or reviewed.  I like to write, of course, I do, but what did I think I was doing? 

    I met Katie in the foyer.  She smiled, and said she was happy to see me, and suddenly I felt better.  It turned out, no one minded at all, about my status or lack of it.  In fact, everyone was far too busy having a great time, to worry about my worries, and soon I didn’t worry either.

     There were over 20 presentations over the next three days divided loosely into the creative inspiration of writing, and the business of writing.  There were presentations by writers, publishers, agents and companies offering help to writers.  The Irish Writers’ Union of Ireland were there, talking about their “Grand Theft Author” campaign, which tries stop Artificial Intelligence (AI) from stealing writers’ work.  There were Hollywood screen writers, and a member of the Ottoman Imperial Family.

    There was even an improvisation session.

    Some writers read their pieces aloud in an open mic session, and I enjoyed hearing Katie read again.  Some writers got to pitch their ideas for books and plays to our new friends from Hollywood, and after the scariest 90 seconds, received constructive feedback.

    If there was a dark cave, during the weekend, it might be my reluctance to monetise my hobby of writing.  I love writing.  I’ve always loved writing.  I love my daily practice of trying to put into word form, the experiences of being in this world.  I try to connect, with my honest, messy and incongruous inner world and try, if I can, to make sense of it.  The idea of selling this seems ugly.

    And yet, of course, I would. 

    In a heartbeat, and a nano second and without asking any questions.  Which is why I joined the Irish Writers’ Union of Ireland, so that if I ever did get a book deal, someone would read my contract for me and tell me if it was safe to sign.

    As well as joining the Union, I bought some books.  I made some new friends, and I absolutely adored being surrounded by writers, and people who love the business of writing, for the whole weekend.

    I really thank the lovely organiser, Laurence O’Bryan and his team at Books Go Social, and I look forward to seeing everyone next year.

  • Review of the School of Myth Summer School Programme July 2025

    For four days and nights in July this year, I was lucky enough to be one of the sixty participants on the School of Myth summer school programme, at a manor house, on the edge of Dartmoor.  We listened to Dr Martin Shaw, tell us ancient Celtic myths, Arthurian stories, and folk tales from Siberia, for hour after hour, and day into eve.

    Sometimes, the stories were accompanied by the smell of an open burning fire, and sage.  Sometimes, the sound of drums walked the stories in.

    When was the last time someone told you a story?

    When was the last time you gave your full, undivided attention to a storyteller?

    Martin would start each story in the same way, by asking us, “shall we go?”  We would answer him, “let’s go!”

    For a second time he asked us, “shall we go?”

    And again, we shouted back, “let’s go!”

    Finally, when he asked us a third time, “shall we go?” glee and laughter filled the room, as we cried back loudly, “LET’S GO!”

    Martin then took us gently back to kingdoms far away and long ago, and into deep, dark forests and sacred rivers, and to a lake that three large cows walked out of.

    It was magnificent.

    I arrived at the manor, with my pre-conceived modern ideas that this workshop or retreat would have an agenda, and name tags and a welcome folder with all the necessary handouts.  In preparation for the week, I had re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles, because it was set on Dartmoor, and I thought it would get me into the mood.

    Oh blessed, sweet, gentle child.  I was in the wrong century.  I did not need those things.  I would need to go further back.

    What I needed to do, was listen carefully.

    What I needed to do, was hear the stories with an open heart and kindness.

    What I needed to do, was be still and leave distractions at the train station at Newton Abbott.  What I needed to do, was walk down to the ancient stone bridge, turn right at the fairy forest, walk past the Alpacas and take a long relaxing swim in the lake, under the silver-grey clouds, in the grounds of the manor.

    The other participants were storytellers:  writers, actors, dancers, teachers, yogis, grief counsellors, psychotherapists, NGO workers, preachers, a hypnotist and a shaman.  We were all on the edge of Dartmoor, looking for magic.

    On the last night, we watched a performance of a few scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream outdoors, and then we huddled around the bonfire.  Some people wore flowers in their hair, and there was music. The staff of The School of Myth were kind, and thoughtful, and prepared our feasts, and took care of us.

    I’m not sure why I went, but I’m happy I did, because it changed my life.

    I’m not sure how, or even if the changes will be visible from the outside, but something has shifted my heart.  A tiny piece of me has altered indefinitely, and I will never be the same.

    Since my return from the moors, I’ve been swimming in Martin’s back catalogue of work:  his Jawbone YouTube channel, and his books.

    I thoroughly enjoyed “Smoke Hole:  Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass” and “Red Bead Woman:  Consequence and Longing in the Myth World”.  I’ll need to re-read both books many times if I want to ponder them carefully and reflect wisely.  I’ll need to read his other work, and see him when he comes to Dublin in October, and hopefully go back to summer school, next year. I’ll stay in touch with some of my new friends, and I’ll learn more.

    Once in a while, this life offers up beauty, joy and safety in ways we couldn’t have planned for, or imagined.  When it does, it’s our duty to note the extraordinariness, bow our heads, and gratefully say, “let’s go”.

  • Made in Dublin: into today

    When the greens are different.

    Not of the light luminescence of spring, but a darker green now.

    When the richer greens are more complicated, and more mature, and heavier.

    When the green of the grass is fuller then, than the younger grass, only then are the ants ready to fly.

    One evening in July, between the dusk and sunset, when the temperature, light and humidity are just right, and when the grass is long enough and strong enough, to launch them. 

    Then and only then, can the ants file one by one, and fly into the sky.

    Straight up, and into the wild awaiting air for them.

    Their first flight with their new, tiny, translucent wings takes their weight and the wind, and takes them high, into the blue sky still.  The clouds wait, and the air supports them.

    Off they fly, into today and into the summer eve’s blue.  And it will be the blue that’s a part of it.  When the sky is Maya blue, or cornflower blue, or wait, of course…cerulean.

    Some ants are brave and Gung ho.  They fly off on the adventure with big, lascivious grins. They can’t wait to mate, and start new colonies wherever they land, far away from the backyards where they started from.

    Other ants have summer melancholia and are wistful for their old homes, which were familiar and safe.  They feel vertiginous, and nauseous, and teary.  They will never enjoy the evening acrobatics, or the free falling or the dangers.  They look backwards, towards the homes where they once belonged.

    Some ants are neutral:  neither excited nor dreading the event.  They simply accept it’s what they do, on this one night in July, alongside all the other ants.

    All the thoughts and doubts.  The awe ants, and doubting ants, sad ants and excited ants, joyful ants and naughty ants, funny ants and deeply, earnest ants. 

    All flying in the sky, spectacularly.

    All the other ants, know the moment of flight from the temperature, the light, the humidity and the way the green grass looks different now, from the luminescence of the spring.  But now a darker green, a more mature green and a more complicated colour. 

    This tremendous journey under azure skies, timelessly.

  • Book Review:  “Barren”, by Byddi Lee

    Byddi Lee’s “Barren” is a book about loss, sorrow, love, and hope. 

    “Barren” is an original story about two women separated in history by 4000 years, and connected by spirits, colours and auras.  It’s beautifully written, very funny in parts, and structurally very satisfying as both women return to an axe, and to the foundations of their stories.

    Aisling lives in modern day California, and together with her husband Ben, is Trying to Conceive (TTC).  Childlessness for both, but particularly for her, is a barren landscape which is becoming more expensive and challenging to their relationship.  The external pressures the couple face are the effects of climate change and a profound homesickness, which eventually takes them back across the Atlantic to visit Ireland.

    Zosime, meanwhile, lives in Ireland in 2354 BC, and faces the loss of her village.  A comet has passed too closely to the earth, and the sun has disappeared.  Zosime’s communal loss, her need to “follow the sun” and journey towards the sea, and beyond, is a challenge that she and her partner, Nereus, learn to manage because of their intrinsic hope.

    The two parallel stories are connected through plot, colours, prose and humour (one section ends with a ritualistic ceremony involving dead pigs, while another section opens with the couple in California cooking a fry!).   And as the two women slowly realise that they are stronger and more capable than they might have imagined, they also start to realise that their own stories can change, and the stories they witness carry their own energies and auras. 

    “telling our story, and bearing witness to others’ stories…”

    The juxtaposition of a very modern, realistic story of two Irish people living in California could be jarring against a neolithic story of hunter gatherers forced from their village, and yet, Byddi Lee manages to take the reader through the landscapes safely.  There are moments of magic realism, simplicity and dreamscapes, set against a backdrop of climate chaos, forced migration, deep sorrow and healing.

    Byddi Lee has a history of taking care of stories and the stories she witnesses.  She is the founder of, and she manages Flash Fiction Armagh, where she promotes new writers, sometimes in the Armagh County Museum, which makes a visit in the last few chapters of “Barren”.

    Already described as, “engrossing, immersive and wonderfully constructed” by Donal Ryan, “Barren” is beautifully written, enjoyable and poignant, with great hope and love on every page.

    “We don’t come from nowhere, nor do we vanish into nothing.  I always knew three facts.  I was wanted – in bright shades of flashing yellow – desperately wanted. I was loved – in vibrant shades of swirling pinks and reds – unconditionally loved.  And I’d never be forgotten – in shimmering waves of silver – always remembered”. (p.12)

  • Made in Dublin: the age of entitlement

    A few years ago, when I first noticed younger people offering me their seats on public transport, I would shake my head and hands furiously and say, “no thank you”.  Lately, when offered a seat, I smile sweetly and take it immediately.  I don’t care if there are more deserving people on the bus.  I barge past them and sit on the throne offered.  Then like everyone else on the bus, I open my phone and inhale its content, slack jawed and vacant eye’d.

    People on the buses are fascinating.

    My favourite seat is the one at the front, on the upper deck.  I love the views and there’s extra space for my bags, and there’s an unwritten rule that you’re not here to chat or make friends, but simply to enjoy the ride.

    I try to avoid the back seat on the upper desk, as that’s where all the mischief makers head.  The back seat on the upper deck, is where groups of unruly youths go to vape and play their music loudly, and cause trouble.  They’ll scream and laugh and be a nuisance.

    The downstairs back seat row is more subdued.  This is a cave of safety where the serious gather.  It’s here you’ll see people reading books or listening to self-help podcasts.  The downstairs front area, meanwhile, is an eclectic mix of older people, tourists and drug users. 

    The tourists can be further divided into those wearing decent rain gear and those who don’t know where they are, or where they’re going.  Some of them put their suitcases in the carriage near the driver and then regret this decision bitterly.  They ask everyone, many times, where O’Connell Street is, and they look both scared and disappointed.  They seem aghast at the weather, prices and lack of glamour, and they seem so wildly unimpressed, you wonder what they’d hoped for.

    Dublin bus drivers are the most patient drivers in the whole world.

    They are tourist guides, agony aunts, mediators, healers and they bestow sacred rites.  I love to hear their responses to some questions, including “do you accept dollars,” “is this the way to Belfast” and “do you know my cousin John?”  I love watching two bus drivers stop their vehicles on opposite sides of the street, just to say hello, or, how’s it going?  I always say, “good morning” and “thank you” to the drivers, and sometimes I wave when I leave.

    Nowadays, people enjoy having full blown conversations on their mobiles, on the buses, and they don’t mind who listens in.  Sometimes the conversations are incredibly personal or scrappy or illegal.  Sometimes, more than one person is on the phone, almost screaming down the line: and like a bar after 8.00pm the noise gets exponentially higher and higher.

    Eventually, one of them yells, “I’ll call you back later, I can’t hear myself think on this bus”.

    When did we, as a species, learn not to be alone with our thoughts for more than 17 seconds at a time? 

    I feel like it happened lately, but perhaps I’m wrong. 

    Like children in the nursery, we need the constant reassurance, company, approval and entertainment of the ever-fixed blue light, and that sense of comfort that scrolling gives to us.  Rock us silently to sleep, friendly phone, remove our discomfort, boredom and stress, help us manage the pain.

    Beep, beep, ping, ping.

    A place for all the thoughts of all the people, all the time.  A magic hat of all the feelings and all the facts and all the fights.  A goldfish bowl of stale cold water, with bits of rotten dead fish fins in them.

    A mirror, a window, a light, an overfilled bin.

    In time, the daisies in the garden are not entitled. 

    They stand, in these weeks protecting those we can’t see, from the wind and rain.  Their petals so soft to the touch.  They remind you of a satin edged blanket, that comforted your chin, in your childhood bed.  Or the forehead of a puppy from a farm, you can’t remember the name of just now.  But strangely, the sounds from the horseshoes in the stable, has come to you.

    Hay smells of summertime.

    And when you wake and sleep at light time, while other street noises continue, you have the sense of being watched over. 

    Minded by the daisies.

    The bicycle wheel white petals are also Flamenco dancers, in part, with wild arms flaying to music.  Or sleeves on silk dresses.  Their tiny yellow heads, move, and like lighthouses for the snails and slugs, or umbrellas for the hotter days.

    Exhausted from their journeys through the dark earth and clay, until finally they sing, “hello, we are here”. 

    Unordered, delightful daisies, swaying in the back yard for us and for them.

  • Made in Dublin: the age of uncaring

    Dublin comes with rain.

    You can’t have a country as green as ours without the falling water.

    You hear the rain splashing down on asphalt, on the windowpanes of the houses and buses.  It’s part of the soundscape and a background track for this city.

    Some weeks ago, the sound of the city was the shouts and chants of people demanding that migrants like me, go home!  The protesters carried banners of anti-migrant poster boys, like the Presidents of the United States and Russia and an Irish marital artist, recently found guilty of rape.

    Some of the protesters carried crosses, even though St Patrick himself was a migrant.  As was Jesus.

    Some of the protesters wish to go back to a time, before the migrants came to this rock on the edge of the Atlantic.  They long for the 1980s, which was a decade of famous tranquillity, fairness, equity and justice. They believe there were no house shortages or unemployment in the 1980s.  Their memories state that Ireland was a heavenly garden of Eden, with no addiction issues or poverty, in that special decade.

    Some of the protesters wish to go back further. 

    They liked it better when nice, white, Irish women and nice, white, teenage girls could have nice, white, babies with Irish men.  No abortions, no trans rights, no mixed-race children!

    I’m not going to listen to their sounds anymore.

    I’m not going to listen, anymore, to such words of people, who tell me that their Aunt Mary-Kate went on the anti-migrant march but isn’t anti-migrant.

    Aunt Mary-Kate can go and fuck herself!

    I can’t be arsed making excuses for Aunt Mary-Kate anymore. 

    When did it become my job to explain to Aunt Mary-Kate that the engine room of this republic is staffed by migrant workers?  Without us you can close the creches and the cafes and the care homes.  Don’t try and use public transport or taxis without the migrant workforce.  Good luck getting your takeaway prepared, cooked and delivered to your home, and don’t be surprised when hospitals can’t function, without migrants like me. 

    It’s not my role, to highlight the irony to Aunt Mary-Kate, of this country’s history of migration.  Will she bring new posters to the next march, that say, “Stop the Norman Invasion!”, “Vikings Go Home!”, “Irish Diaspora Return – NOW!”

    And where does she want us to go, this Aunt Mary-Kate?

    We can’t go home, when we are home.

    I became Irish seven years ago and in my citizenship ceremony, retired Supreme Judge Brian McMahon, told us that we were as Irish as anyone born here.

    But you can’t say this to Aunt Mary-Kate, who thinks that facts are fake news, and that discourse and debate are methods to silence her right to free speech. You can’t use reason and rationale with someone who puts their fingers in their ears and shouts back, “this new way isn’t fair!”

    The sound of Dublin is rain, and laughter and stories, within the craic agus ceol. But the sound from O’Connell Street, that day frightened me.  They hate me because of the accident of my birth, not because of my own hatbox of contradictions and sins, but they pre-judge me because of where my parents had unprotected sex.

    It chills, me, this sound of people who hate me.  The sound is so menacing and so large.  And so I become quieter.

    We’re an orchestra of correlated mammals in a unified living system, and so with a deep breath, love and wide-open kindness, I come back to Aunt Mary-Kate and I try to explain again. 

    Perhaps this time I whisper.

    Our synchronised sounds can be beautiful flute music, or hellish discord. 

    Even the older trees have memories and want to live well. 

    The robins bathe, at sundown so that their feathers can make the flight, and we are alive now. 

    The staggering pain of this life is only balanced by its incomparable beauty and joy. The open secret, if there is one, is to experience both. 

    Yes, there is both.

  • Made in Dublin: semblance

    Last week, at dusk, on the Llangynidr Moors, the view of Llangorse Lake seemed like a semblance of a dream.  Its ancient sunset sauntered over the horizon and into eternity. 

    It’s beauty reminiscent of a memory from before.

    The mystery of it all, is that it was made so beautiful:  it didn’t have to be so symmetrical, and so pleasing to look at.

    Sometimes, it’s easier to remember the purest of all loves.  We are alive right now, and this feeling is joy. 

    All is thank you.

    You remember not why, or how, but when. 

    When the songbirds bathe before sundown, and the river otters prepare their food.  Foxes and owls, respond to the light of the salmon-coloured sunset, and they too are nostalgic for their dreams.

    When at other times, on the Llangynidr Moors, looking over at LLangorse Lake, the view is obliterated by clouds so low down, that they feel like fog.  When even the Anfanc, from the deep waters of the lake, is too tired to move.  When the Anfanc growls and scowls it does so with vanity and pointlessness and greed!  Its ugliness terrorises the twilight, until it sinks to the bottom of the lake again.

    When it’s all rain and no view at all, the density and magnitude of the time makes us afraid and sad.

    Sometimes, looking at Llangorse Lake from the Llangynidr Moors, we see where the magic lives and how the mystery is yet part of the medicine.  The softness whispers to us that the earth is here to hold us.  A fox makes a cradle from the ground, and as he turns to the earth to rest, he is a guardian of the soil.  Waiting for him to wake again, and letting the world be marvellously unfixable, as it drifts between day and night, dusk and sunset.

  • Made in Dublin: from Dublin to the Domen

    I am here again.

    At the home I was born to, not the home where I live.

    And those of us, who live away, return at times.

    A magician on the hillside shows me a trick with a rabbit.

    And all I see are the smoke and mirrors, and a man behind a curtain, with a loud speaker.

    It’s a shame.

    Who minds about now, or then, or after.

    When only the clean hill air, makes us well again, makes thoughts sleep again, makes worries bow and leave the stage.

    All for this and every time.

    When the clouds look down, and the Valley of the Wild Horse smiles.

    All is OK and all is well.

    We are home.

  • Made in Dublin: eruptions of significance

    Many years ago, during a summer holiday in Italy, I found myself on a tour of the most famous volcanic eruption in the world, Pompei. Like everyone else that day, I found the remains of the town a mix of fascinating, beautiful, horrific and, in eerie ways that I couldn’t understand, poetic.  Our tour guide took us down streets, and into fragments of lives, that all ended the day that Vesuvius erupted.

    One woman, an American walking closely behind me, wanted to know if there were any survivors of the tragedy, who might be still alive.  Maybe they lived in a small village nearby, and maybe we could talk to them?

    It’s easy to tease American tourists, when they ask questions like these and of course, it’s mean spirited and unkind.

    When American tourists come to Ireland, they do so often times, because they have Irish ancestors or want to see Connemara or they have a romantic view of Dublin.  They are incredibly pleasant, chatty, open and they tip well.  They are super polite, when asking for directions or wondering about recommendations.

    But some say harsh things about Dublin, such as, “Dublin is nothing to write home about!”

    Dubliners see our city as a beloved family member, or dear, old friend.  We can criticise the housing crisis, rise in crime, rain, traffic, food, prices and the rain again until the Kerry cows come home, but woe betide anyone else should do so!

    When American tourists talk poorly about our capital, or indeed, when anyone from outside the pale speaks badly of it, we skulk, and frown and look away and say under our breaths…“aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile”.

    Dublin is the best city in the world.

    This is not for the Instagram competition but for the more intangible reasons such as the craic, live music, poetry, and soul of the place, that makes you feel alive when you’re here.

    Some aspects of the city are unforgivable, such as housing policies and the rise in xenophobia that affects me, and all the other migrants.  But I love the eruptions of significance that happens every time one Dubliner makes another Dubliner laugh.

    Better than that, when one Dubliner makes another one smirk!

    Before the English came to Dublin, or the Normans or Saints or Vikings passed through, and even before the Celts, the dragons lived here.  When they breathed, the lava erupted and everyone knew it was true, and everyone sang songs to make them sleep. 

    But even then, it seemed like a difference of sorts, and I can’t understand what happened next. 

    I’m waiting for the dragon to wake.

  • Made in Dublin: drowning in fire

    A man in a wheelchair moves between the cars that are stopped for the red lights.  He shakes his paper cup of coins and asks for more.  The drivers tell him they don’t have any spare change, and they say it from behind closed windows.  When the lights change to green, they drive away from him, on O’Connell Bridge, in the centre of Dublin.

    A man rummages in a bin looking for empty plastic bottles, that he can return for their deposits.  He rescues four, and puts them in his bag, that is filled to explosion with empties already.  His hands are dirty, and his hair is matted, and his clothes stink of street, and shit, and horror.  He takes his bag of bottles and moves onto the next bin, to look for more.

    A woman talks loudly on her mobile phone and explains that she is on her way, to collect her pay. 

    “You can have the lot,” she says, “I can give it you directly, just meet me there!”

    She is rushing through the crowds, to give away all her money, so that there is nothing left. 

    To begin so far behind, feels like free falling. 

    Feels like drowning in fire. 

    Dublin is being cooked slowly; stewed in its own fat and poison and is becoming inedible. 

    The Liffey should be raging in a blaze of anger, to make shame of the violences and grim meanness we live with.  The “Ireland that we dreamed of” was full of storytellers, dancers, and wild free singers.

    Not this that we settled for, not this.

    Eamon de Valera:  “The Ireland that we dreamed of” St Patrick’s Day broadcast – 1943