As other see us
The hostel used for the school trip in July fulfilled all of the requirements, no fault could have been found in its food, cleanliness, efficiency and courtesy, the only question mark that might have been raised was that of location. A ring road with constant traffic noise passed nearby, as did a railway with trains rolling through the hours. There … [continue reading …]
Lines the English don’t read
At eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, the school will stop for two minutes of silence to mark the anniversary of the armistice. Lines from the English war poets Owen and Sassoon appear in students’ work on the walls. Perhaps it would have disturbed the English teachers, but it would have been different if they has included the work of Tom Kettle. … [continue reading …]
The day comes
In a matter of hours, the polling stations in tens of thousands of locations will open. Polling day used always to bring excitement. No matter that there was little or no prospect of backing a winning candidate without betraying a tradition that extended back three generations, there was something about the actual process of voting that was fascinating. Polling stations … [continue reading …]
The old scams seem to work
There can be few people with email addresses who have not received at least an occasional email that seeks details that would allow the sender to defraud them. The “Spanish Hostage” scam is the oldest approach used (thus named because when it began two centuries ago people wrote letters claiming to be held hostage in Sapin and promising abundant reward … [continue reading …]
God bless the Prince of Wales
The Prince of Wales is seventy-one tomorrow, which means it is fifty years since he became Prince of Wales. We watched the investiture ceremony on the television at our primary school. The television could have been a prop from one of those 1960s science fiction series. At the base of the stand, there a rectangle of tubular metal with a … [continue reading …]
Singing carols
The members of my tutor group seemed to know about it before I did – next Wednesday morning we have a carol service. With the exception of a couple of students whose family do not celebrate Christmas, the two hundred students of Year 7 will go to a local church to sing the old favourites. The one consolation is that … [continue reading …]
Bad outcomes
The Year 7 lesson on moral evil and natural evil asked students the question as to which they considered worst: a good intention with a bad outcome, or a bad intention with a good outcome? There was a general consensus within the class that the former was better; that something done with a good intention was always preferable to a … [continue reading …]
Will you?
“Will you?” was played on the radio this morning. Hazel O’Connor’s song from the 1980 album Breaking Glass was recalled by listeners who messaged to express their approval of it finding airtime thirty-nine years after it was recorded. I was twenty when it was released After two terms at university in London, I had dropped out. They were very gracious, gave … [continue reading …]
Settling the account
This story was expanded from a piece of flash fiction. It was entered for this year’s RTÉ Francis McManus Short Story Competition. The evening classes at the college gave her the opportunity. It was a computing class that had taught her to use the Internet, something of which she had been frightened. It had been the stories in the papers … [continue reading …]