Writer of fiction: Irish Terrorism and the lives it damages.
From Banality to Atrocity?
During the Troubles the squeeze of a trigger or flick of a switch could quickly turn the events of the day from mundane to inhumane. For the majority of the time the victims of shootings or bombings would have been vastly unaware of their fate. But sometimes not. How do you process the possibility of confronting someone who wants to murder you?
EPISODE SIX: THE MURDER CORRIDOR West Belfast. Early 1990s. Royal Ulster Constabulary officers are lured to address. Waiting for them is an Improvised Explosive Device and a ‘murder corridor’ engineered and primed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Presented in a narrative framework this episode explores the impact on ordinary members of the public whoContinue reading “STRAY BULLETS PODCAST”
mind going backwards to the IED – the one by the path not the car not the firing-point not the one that took a soldier’s face so many – a mind made of sepia voices wrapped in newsprint washed away yesterdays red streams through barren field-dressings drown my mind. Politics is just noise in myContinue reading “ALL LIFE IS NOISE”
There’s no greater act of liberation than dying a death so grand to free one’s native land.
After wrestling my novel back from a publisher who, strangely, did absolutely nothing with my novel for nearly a year, I’ve decided to self-publish. The publisher in question wasn’t of the Vanity or Hybrid variety, just inactive..? Anyway, I’m back in control and have no interest in submitting to anymore agents / publishers. My secondContinue reading “The Bitter End of Dreams Republished”
PTSD and its urge for self-destruction through risk-taking
I sharpened my morning on the surface of your souvenir swirling your reflection till the water was clear water … in the hollow of the leaf diamond-lidded mercury stares tilting God’s mouth open. I watched time pour into silver wells above horizons of blunted night my dimming sight – your souvenir.
This is a story unlike any you’ve ever read before. Yet is is a familiar story. A story of fragility and fury. Of the sectarianism which continues to haunt Ireland’s blood. And, just maybe, hope glimmers among the rubble of hate. For there is one treasure more prized by hearts than any of power’s most murderous treasures: love.
Tirades against terrorism, and why I refuse to be anyone’s stereotype just because I wore a RUC uniform.
The Damage Done Trilogy 