Shorter than me

Category: Blog posts

  • Book Review:  Leaflight Moon by Monica Corish

    I first met Monica Corish in the old Irish Aid Centre at the top of O’Connell Street, Dublin, back in the summer of 2012.  She was facilitating a creative writing workshop for returned volunteer development workers, and I loved the Amherst teaching method she used, and the lovely tone and style she applied to it.  I left the workshop thinking, “that went very well”, and we started it then.

    I attended many of her workshops after that.  I went to more sessions at the Irish Aid Centre, then at the Comhlámh offices on Parliament Street and later again, online.  I met her creative partner and partner in life, the writer, Tom Sigafoos and I enjoyed learning from her.

    I always loved her poetry.

    Her beautiful, “Slow Mysteries”, (2012, Doghouse), is a sublime collection of poems about Monica’s home, “and where are you from, and who are your people?”  and Monica’s travels, both in and outside of Ireland.

    In, “And yes, the waves were sparkling”, she takes us to Donegal Bay where the sea was “the happiest bluest turquoise/ I had ever seen” to Ntarama, Rwanda to witness “our own unbearable grief/ for the loss of unbearable joy”.

    It’s testament to her skill as a writer, and creative coach that she can lead the reader safely through difficult terrain.  And it’s those guide-like ways that have come into their own in her debut novel, “Leaflight Moon” (2025, Púca Books).

    “Leaflight Moon” is a story of Sligo, Ireland in 4000 BC, when our ancient hunter gather-ancestors, met the first farmers, who cut down trees and kept their animals in cages.  It’s an extraordinary tale and it’s a wonderful story.

    At first, this period of time, might be disorientation for readers without knowledge of prehistoric landscape.  But what Monica does, and where some of her magic lies, is she treats her characters from six thousand years ago, with the same respect and dignity as she might new friends from the coffee shop, from across the street.  She assumes they have desires and fears, and she gives them voice, through her poetic prose.

    Monica describes the landscape of the time beautifully.

    “The waning-crescent Moon moved slowly through a cloudless sky.  The sea was perfectly calm, the horizon straight as a reed.  They paddled past mountains – WolfHowl – Eyrie – Blade – Boar – all leafing green and speckled white with sloe thorn”.

    Monica’s characters, who change names as they grow and learn more about the land, and their place in it, are fully capable of making mistakes, doing terrible things and learning from their tragic errors.  Monica takes the reader by the hand and whispers, “I know this is a bit unusual, but I am a storyteller and a poet, and you can trust me.  If you stay with me, I’ll show you a story as ancient as the moon”.

    Some of her characters have issues with the newcomers, and their modern ways of doing things.  Some of her characters fall in love, and experience pain, grief, sorrow and loss.

    One of the interesting aspects of the pages, is how characters can sound so reflectively modern, without us suspending our disbelief.  The assumption that they couldn’t possibly be as thoughtful as we are now, is removed, as it is their relationship with the land, the seasons, the animals and of course the moon, which leaves us lacking.

    Whoever, “us” is.

    Change is inevitable in this book and the desire for our species to adapt is essential if they, and we, are to survive.

    “Leaflight Moon” needs concentration, in a world where our concentration is sold to the highest bidder. The reader has to orientate themselves in an unfamiliar setting and Monica is there to help us.  Characters change names just as we are getting to know them, and we need to adapt if we are to keep up.  Why shouldn’t our ancient ancestors get the attention they deserve as we sit around our virtual fires and listen to the stories under night fall?

    I was lucky enough to go to the Sligo launch of “Leaflight Moon” and was delighted to meet so many alumni from Kimmage Development Studies Centre, where so many volunteer development workers studied either before, during or after their overseas work.  And of course, the Yeats Centre, where the book was launched, was full of Monica’s supporters, friends, family and other story tellers.

    I was then later delighted to hear that “Leaflight Moon” won, the Carousel Aware Prize (CAP), award for fiction and the Golden CAP for best independently published books, at the award ceremony in Chapters Bookstore, on 10 October, 2025.

    Monica is a poet, creative coach, teacher and friend and now she is a successful novelist.   She has done so much, over the years, to support other writers through her writing circles, workshops and mentoring.  Her warmth and wisdom deserve the success she is having with this book, and I hope she is enjoying every moment.

    Much love Monica,

    From Ruth, Dublin.

    You can buy copies of Leaflight Moon in Chapters Bookstore, and Books Upstairs (Dublin).

  • Time in dream aura

    Time in dream aura

    Time in dreams darkens now

    A veil falls over, stillness hushes the house.

    Curtains close, lights turn on, fires lit.

    Candles put in holders.

    The wet, the wind, the cold.

    Courage that it changes, like it did before.

    Not long now, not far away before the solstice brings relief.

    Turn inwards, and gently rock

    and float on late autumns’ rivers

    and let them take us, where they flow.

    We did it before and we can do it again.

    If you let your mind remember

    that evolution and eternity are not done with us yet.

    They are preparing for the sequel.

  • Storytelling for UCDVO – “Under blue skies”

    A few weeks ago, my friend Zoe Liston invited me to a storytelling event, at University College Dublin Volunteers Overseas (UCDVO), where she works as the programme and education officer. 

    Together, with five other story tellers, and musician Seamus Hyland, we told tales about volunteering at home, and further away and I was delighted to be involved in such a beautiful event.  The other storytellers were Safia Hassan, Bulelani Mfaco, Kelvyn Fields, Jo Kennedy and Oein DeBhairduin, and I was so happy to be involved in such a caring afternoon.  The stories were recorded alongside some of the music Seamus played, and you can listen to all six here.

    Or you can read my story, “Under blue skies”, below.

    ———————————————————————————-

    Under blue skies

    People don’t always remember how beautiful Mongolia is. 

    There are snow-capped mountains that dip down into wide valleys with freshwater lakes.  Camels roam and wolves hunt under midnight moons, and the air changes shape when the seasons move.

    In those days, the city was growing as many people moved away from the countryside, towards the opportunities in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.  Young students rushed over the half-built pavements, chatting as they walked from their dormitories on the east of the city, to the universities on Sukhbaatar Square.  They studied subjects that would bring them work in the future like translation, business and computer studies.  Dreams of travelling come with price tags.

    Other people came to the city to find work.

    One couple, an older herder couple from the Gobi, couldn’t afford to stay in the countryside anymore as it was too harsh, too unpredictable.  A cousin told them they could earn money as a taxi, so they packed up everything and moved.  They drove students over Lion’s Bridge to the dormitories near the Wrestling Palace, and they drove tourists from the hotels to the train station, that would take them to Beijing or Moscow. 

    The older couple, this herder couple from the Gobi, carried all their possessions with them.  They kept bags of clothes and wooden stools and framed photographs in the boot, and on the back seat of the car, and they waited to find a new home.  He was too old to herd animals on his own.  Their children, big now and living in America, couldn’t help keep the fire burning, and so the nomads moved.

    Except he wasn’t a very good driver, and she liked to sing songs.

    His herder boots were too heavy for the silver-grey pedals of the car.  She sang songs about roaming camels and the wolves that hunted under the midnight moonlight.  She sang songs about riding horses at dawn and of making food for her children, who were now, too far away to eat it.  She sang songs about the everlasting blue skies over the steppe in Mongolia, and she sang songs about remembering.  He liked the songs about archery best of all.

    The sky was blue.

    The sky was almost always blue, when an international Volunteer waved down the car and asked the older couple to drive her to the dormitories on the east of the city, where she was renting a room.  She too, had come to the city for her work, and she directed them over the Lion’s Bridge, near the Wrestling Palace and right at the dormitories.  Volunteer hardly ever took a taxi, on her allowance of 200 dollars a month, but the river under the bridge was frozen, and conditions were treacherous.

    The woman offered Volunteer tea, from the flask, but Volunteer shook her head.  The woman ignored this and poured some lukewarm tea into a plastic cup and placed it on Volunteer’s lap.  This made Volunteer even more annoyed than she was before she got into the car, so she looked out of the window, to avoid more conversation.

    There was ice inside the windows and the car smelled of petrol.  The man’s skills at herding yaks and horses did not transfer to driving.  The man couldn’t see out of his window and had trouble changing gears.  The car lurched forward and skidded slowly into the oncoming traffic, on the opposite side of the road.

    Volunteer screamed out loud.

    She reached for a safety belt, that wasn’t there, and as she did so the plastic cup of tea spilt over her lap and legs.  She shouted at the couple.

    The car stopped in the middle of the road, while other cars carefully drove around it.  The man corrected the car’s position and got it facing the right way again.  The tea wasn’t very hot and hadn’t made its way through Volunteer’s heavy winter coat.   All three of them were safe again, and there was no need to worry.

    The older couple, this married couple from the Gobi, were embarrassed and when they pulled up outside the dormitories, they refused to take payment for the ride.  They gave Volunteer a packet of biscuits from the supermarket and thanked her for coming to Mongolia.  They said they were sorry for scaring her so much on Lion’s Bridge, and it was true, they were very sorry.

    They were sorry they no longer lived near the freshwater lake, where the camels roamed and the wolves hunted under the midnight moonlight.  They were sorry their children had to move so far away to other lands, and they were sorry that the songs about remembering, always made them sad.

  • 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.