We borrowed a boat and rowed out to one of the islands on Lough Gill. It took longer than I expected. I was afraid of the water. My wife sat in the front of the boat eating a banana. “There’s somebody out there,” she said. She was looking at the island through her binoculars. “He’s…

Dear Necessary Fiction Friends, Readers and Contributors, A signed copy of my story collection, Cut Through the Bone is up for grabs. All you have to do to be in the running is to share in the comments below a favorite line or passage from any one of the Irish-centered stories or poems published in…

At dawn the sun is staining pulled-taffy clouds various shades of purple and orange and Doreen sits by the aluminum deer stand like Bobby told her to. There’s a skinny white dog at her side. Doreen does not see Bobby at first because of the angle of his approach but when the dog barks and…

This is where I live now; my travelling has brought me here and it is good enough. My daughter-in-law tries – forcefully some days, gently others – to move me up to the spare bedroom in the cottage, but right here does me fine. It is only a shed but it is cosy like a…

Driving out of Metro Honda in my Honda Civic I notice snow heaped in the back of the red pick-up truck in front driving out of Metro Honda before me between heaps of snow. I know it is a red pick-up because I know how this particular red drops its edges—glows—when paired with a sheet…

The Bitch of Blackrock She owns the place by taking it all in with abrupt jerks of the head little sniffs searching for flaws or relations tugging her companion after her eyeing the state of the shoes around the place, the quality of the getups. Get too close and you’ll hear about it. The stink…

Rent Day Through the window, mother, slow-dancing with the landlord. Their eyes closed, he holds one of her hands to his chest. Father’s wireless on the shelf. + Nancy Spain There’s a big old espresso machine behind the bar and nobody speaks when it’s in action because it sounds like a steam train in full…

Fifty Words Crossing the Atlantic mind numbing desire to be in another position the imposition that I am other is what gnarls me, a violent shade of scorched thrumming I am an alien Armagnac, earthy and unappreciated, inebriated Is it yourself that’s in it? Certainly! Hardly ever the true answer. + Crave 6,000 miles is…

Morning on Montpelier Then there is the morning when the Mourne Mountains are a gift, strafing the horizon like a Shangri La north of Dublin with its saucer bay, tauter than plastic where toy ferries ply their trade to all points east. No matter that a front approaches stealthily, that this crisp dry air will…

When my mother polished, Claire and I hid upstairs. It only happened sometimes, in time for visitors – she wasn’t house-proud. But the polishing, when it happened, was something else. We’d hear her march down the hall, after a morning of, ‘I’m sick of this place – living in filth.’ Then she’d go on, ‘If…

Jules has no idea how much she looks like I used to. Part of me wants to tell her, but I’m afraid of her reaction. Her face has touches of her father, but something in the defiant cast of her chin, in the way her eyes flit rapidly, taking in my small apartment – it’s…

Standing there, looking down and you don’t believe he’s gone, into the earth, when: a tap on the shoulder. “Don’t take their word for it,” she says, she who did the tapping and is standing there, smart in black, smart and blonde in a suit and looking not her age, which is your age. “Mary…